Crime: Advance payment, celebrities, bankruptcy – how Teldafax managed to get away with it for years
Rudi Völler and Thomas Gottschalk advertised for the electricity provider. Internally, the management board had long known that the company was insolvent. A system that was built on deception.
On June 14, 2011, energy provider Teldafax filed for insolvency at the Bonn district court, affecting hundreds of thousands of customers who had prepaid for their electricity. The total debt owed to creditors amounts to 656 million euros. Despite internal warnings as early as summer 2009 that the company was insolvent, and alerts from the Federal Network Agency and the main customs office, the company's questionable business model, which relied on advance payments and forced growth, continued to operate.
The model had the support of prominent figures including Rudi Völler, Thomas Gottschalk, and Ole Einar Björndalen.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
