American billionaire who disappeared in the Swiss Alps in 2018 may be ‘alive in Moscow’ as new investigation links him to a Russian spy and a tycoon dubbed ‘Scarface Oligarch’ who sold his mansion to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
- Karl-Erivan Haub’s body was never found but he was declared dead years later
- The German-American tycoon disappeared in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland
An American billionaire who vanished under mysterious circumstances under Switzerland’s iconic Matterhorn peak five years ago is suspected to be alive in Russia, a new investigation has claimed.
German-American tycoon Karl-Erivan Haub, then 58, was training for a ski mountaineering race when he disappeared in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland.
The businessman was seen heading up the mountain in a lift that morning, but never returned to his hotel. His body was never found and Haub was declared dead by a Cologne court three years later.
But now a major investigation claims to have identified Haub in Moscow with 90 per cent certainty through FSB secret service facial recognition cameras despite him supposedly dying in the tragic accident on the Swiss peak.
The investigation by Germany’s Stern and RTL now links the Haub’s suspicious disappearance to a possible Russian spy and a self-confessed fraudster known as the ‘Scarface Oligarch’ – who happened to sell Prince Harry and Meghan Markle their Californian home.
German-American tycoon Karl-Erivan Haub, then 58, was training for a ski mountaineering race when he disappeared in April 2018
Haub’s business partners included notorious self-confessed fraudster Sergey Grishin – known as the ‘Scarface Oligarch’
Retail mogul Haub – who was the managing director and part owner of Tengelmann Group, which owns a string of supermarkets – is alleged to have dialed the phone of mysterious Russian woman Veronika Ermilova 13 times in the three days before he vanished in 2018, according to the probe by Stern and RTL.
One call lasted an hour, another 48 minutes leading to suspicions he was plotting to fake his death with help from Moscow and of Ermilova, who is suspected of being a Russian agent.
Another sensational finding is that his Russian business partners included notorious self-confessed fraudster Sergey Grishin – known as the ‘Scarface Oligarch’ – who sold Harry and Meghan their US home in Montecito for $14.7 million.
Grishin was reported to have died from a long illness in March, although no evidence of his funeral has ever emerged.
As well as calling Ermilova, Haub is also understood to have dialed secretive Russian mogul Andrey Suzdaltsev in both Russia and Geneva shortly before he died, the investigation has claimed.
Suzdaltsev, in his mid-50s, is a shareholder in RosEvroBank, dubbed as ‘the most criminal bank in Russia’ by the Moscow media.
The bank – also associated with Grishin – is suspected of being part of a ‘Russian laundromat’ through which up to $80 million was allegedly siphoned between 2010 and 2014, the report says.
Haub’s business partners in Russia were seen as linked to RosEvroBank, including Suzdaltsev and Grishin.
‘At the same time that Suzdaltsev was part of an apparently criminal system, he was also doing business with Karl-Erivan Haub,’ reported Stern.
The report claims it was the aim was of Haub’s company Tengelmann to become a major retail player in Russia, and the tycoon appears to have invested almost £40 million in a project with no visible result.
Haub is alleged to have dialed the phone of mysterious Russian woman Veronika Ermilova – suspected of being a Russian agent – 13 times in the three days before he vanished
Veronika Ermilova, 43, is pictured at Pacman bar, St Petersburg, back in 2016
Haub called Ermilova 13 times before his disaperance, leading to suspicions he was plotting to fake his death with help from Moscow
Haub is also understood to have dialed secretive Russian mogul Andrey Suzdaltsev shortly before he died, the investigation has claimed.
Further extraordinary new details show that for around a decade before he vanished, although married, Haub’s life was intertwined with the ‘enigmatic’ Ermilova, now 43.
Investigators for Tengelmann suggest that she ‘may work for the Russian domestic secret service FSB’ although this ‘cannot be proven’.
‘What can be proven, however, is that she is always in the same places at the same time as Karl-Erivan Haub,’ said the report
‘In July 2008, both were in Moscow and Sochi within a few days… In May 2009, both traveled on the same night train from Moscow to St Petersburg, in separate compartments. The trips were booked at the same time and by the same person.
‘Strange too: [Ermilova] came to Moscow the day before just to take the train back home.
‘Further overlaps of short trips by Haub and [Ermilova] can be found for stays in Omsk (2010), Sochi (2011), Baku (2014) and Moscow (2015, 2017).’
The report states: ‘It is not clear why these alleged meetings took place. It doesn’t sound like a love vacation.
‘Allegedly nobody at Tengelmann knew anything about Karl-Erivan Haub’s trips to Russia.’
One theory is that he could have left his Swiss hotel, and descended to the Italian side of the mountain ‘to disappear…forever’.
A suspicion is that he feared his secret and shady Russian links emerging and needed to escape.
Sergey Grishin was reported to have died from a long illness in March, although no evidence of his funeral has ever emerged
Suzdaltsev, in his mid-50s, is a shareholder in RosEvroBank, dubbed as ‘the most criminal bank in Russia’ by the Moscow media
Another version is that he ‘could have been acting as a kind of influence agent for Russia in Germany’, RTL journalist Liv von Boetticher told Die Welt.
He possibly feared being unmasked.
‘It’s not about an agent with a floppy hat and a trench coat or a James Bond, but about influence on politics and the economy – at a time when Tengelmann was doing pretty badly…and was expanding into Russia with the Obi DIY chain, for example.’
The journalist said: ‘I am sure it was not a skiing accident, but a staged escape.’
It is alleged some £430 million was missing from his private fortune.
Haub was officially declared dead in 2021 with a net wealth of £5.2 billion – even though his body was missing.
The investigation found that Ermilova ran an ‘inconspicuous’ event agency in St Petersburg with hobbies like hiking, climbing and ski touring.
She is described as ‘a slim woman with shoulder-length brown hair’ and an ‘athletic figure, dark eyes, [and] open smile’.
Leaks also show passwords on her email accounts as including Haub’s name.
The Stern report also says that Tengelmann’s own investigators hired a former Stasi liaison officer to ex-KGB spy Putin and a former employee of the Bundeswehr’s military counterintelligence service (MAD) as they sought to establish what had happened to Haub.
Although married, Haub’s life was intertwined with the ‘enigmatic’ Ermilova, now 43, ahead of his disappearance
The investigation now links Haub’s suspicious disappearance to Veronika Ermilova, believed to be a possible Russian spy
At one point they were warned against working on the ground in Russia and told to ‘go home – your families need you’.
‘The ex-Stasi officer and the former MAD employee, say the internal investigators, are dead today.’
Billionaire Grishin had purchased the now-royal mansion – known as the Chateau of Riven Rock with a seven-acre site, pool, tennis court, guest quarters and stunning main house – in 2009.
His nickname Scarface was because he had owned another Californian mansion where the 1983 Al Pacino movie Scarface was filmed.
He was co-owner of RosEvroBank, and sold the seven-bedroom home to the Sussexes in 2020.
The Russian tycoon also boasted he had brought the Russian bank system to its knees in the 1990s by committing a $60bn fraud.
He called it ‘the largest bank fraud scheme ever’, orchestrating a $60 billion heist from the Russian Central Bank.
He confessed his role in the Reds-to-Riches era scheme in the 1990s in videos made on board his private Gulfstream jet, apparently in the hope it would lead to a US passport.
Ermilova ran an ‘inconspicuous’ event agency in St Petersburg with hobbies like hiking, climbing and ski touring
Haub was officially declared dead in 2021 with a net wealth of £5.2 billion – even though his body was missing
Grishin wanted American officials to know ‘how a single person like me can cause the collapse of the Russian banking system’.
He had previously called on then president Donald Trump to grant him a US passport saying: ‘I want to be safe.
‘I am kind of under fire right now by the criminal world of Russia…by the top government officials of Russia, too.’
He reportedly died in March from ‘circulatory problems in his brain’ which led to sepsis.
He was also accused of making extreme threats to women in his life.
One ex-lover Ekaterina Loginova questioned how much Harry and Meghan knew about the previous owner of their Californian mansion.
‘I like Meghan and Harry – they do not deserve any such problems,’ said the Russian model, briefly the chatelaine of the royal mansion in 2018 after beginning a relationship with Grishin.
‘I was just shocked they did not check the seller before the transaction.’
Source: Read Full Article
