MegaUpload’s Kim Tim Jim Vestor (aka Kim Schmitz aka Kim Dotcom) appears to be a shareholder of Ruyan Group (Holdings) Limited aka Dragonite International
http://www.dragonite.com.hk/upload/news/1276268729_EW0329ANN1.pdf
Dragonite International Limited (Stock Code: 0329) has been listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited since April 2001, fomerly known as ‘Ruyan Group (Holdings) Limited’. On June 2007, the Group has acquired entire shareholding of Best Partners Worldwide Limited (currently known as “SBT Investment (Holdings) Limited”), which engaged in the manufacturing and sales of electronic atomizing cigarettes.
http://www.dragonite.com.hk/epage.php?frameid=6000&pageid=7
Dragonite has previously appointed Mr. Manfred A. Haussler as a non-executive director of the Company. Mr. Haussler has over 25 years’ experience as an executive in the consumer products and tobacco industries. He was the Chief Operation Officer and President of international operations and member of the board of directors of Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH (the 4th largest global cigarette manufacturer).
http://en.prnasia.com/pr/2011/01/14/110010312.shtml
Previously:
The Board of Imperial Tobacco Group PLC announces that three new appointments will be made to the Group Board with effect from August 1st 2002. Manfred A Häussler will join the Board as an Executive Director. Operationally, he was recently appointed Imperial Tobacco’s Sales and Marketing Director following the Company’s acquisition of Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH.
http://www.imperial-tobacco.co.uk/index.asp?page=78&newsid=25&year=archive
On Tuesday, German customs officials searched the offices of Imperial Tobacco’s Reemtsma subsidiary in Hamburg, as part of an investigation into cigarette smuggling into Iraq and Germany. Imperial said on Tuesday that a number of Reemtsma managers, including sales & marketing director Manfred Haussler, had been charged in connection with an investigation of alleged foreign trading and related violations. The German investigation centres on the suggestion that non-taxed cigarettes were exported then smuggled back into Germany and that Reemtsma broke UN sanctions by exporting cigarettes to Iraq. Officials believe up to 17 million cigarettes, worth about $270,000 (£170,000), were smuggled illegally into Iraq in 2000, breaking international embargoes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2659397.stm
IT is being described as the biggest anti-Mafia raid in Europe. A thousand customs officials and armed border police stormed the Hamburg headquarters of Imperial Tobacco’s German subsidiary, Reemtsma, this month as part of Operation Tarot. They uncovered evidence involving allegations of massive cigarette smuggling. Elsewhere, arising from the same operation, but not connected to Reemtsma, they claim to have uncovered a money-laundering network with links to arms dealing and prostitution. Seven directors, including Imperial board member Manfred Haussler, were questioned on suspicion of working with the Russian Mafia to set up front companies to smuggle millions of cigarettes in a network that stretched from Dover to the Russian steppes. None was arrested and all are believed to have denied the accusations. They were released without charge pending further inquiries. Police also claim the executives masterminded the sale of 17m cigarettes to Iraq in 2000, contrary to UN trade sanctions, a charge Imperial vigorously denies.
If charged and convicted, the executives could be jailed for seven years while Imperial faces fines that could top £1bn. It is all very embarrassing for Imperial and its chain-smoking chief executive Gareth Davis, who bought Reemtsma for £3.5bn just eight months ago. The City hailed the deal as the perfect fit between Britain’s leading tobacco giant, which markets the best-selling Lambert & Butler, Regal and Superkings brands, and the Continent’s second-biggest tobacco company. Davis will need the allowance of 200 free cigarettes a month that all Imperial directors receive if he is to calm his nerves. Imperial states that even as it bought Reemtsma – its West brand is the most smuggled cigarette in Europe – no one on the board was aware of the extent of the undercover operation and they were kept in the dark by German managers.
Operation Tarot was carried out with utmost secrecy after the failure of a raid in 2001, thought to have been scuppered by a tip-off. The vital clues came from a Russian Mafia godfather turned supergrass, dubbed Andreas N. In exchange for freedom from prosecution, he revealed how the smuggling network he ran for more than a decade made him a fortune with homes in Germany and Spain and a collection of Porsches and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Andreas N. lived in the leafy Harburg district of Hamburg in a luxury house surrounded by a 7ft fence topped with heat-sensitive security cameras. His wife is a former Lithuanian beauty queen. The couple were the toast of Hamburg’s high society and frequent guests at jet-set parties thrown under the banner of Reemtsma’s West brand on the North Sea island of Sylt. He first came under suspicion three years ago. His address book was a Who’s Who of the Russian government and the heads of other former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe. His business interests extended to the Far East.
German police investigator Burkhard Vonnahme said: ‘He has given us a number of statements, all of them detailed. Now comes the task of checking what he claims against the evidence we have.’ Police sources say that the Mafia boss’s confessions will help them unravel what is thought to be Europe’s biggest criminal network.
So far they have staged a series of raids throughout western Germany on sex clubs suspected of being fronts for laundered Mafia money. One, frequented by bankers from nearby Frankfurt, boasts 80 call girls, tennis courts, a fitness room, saunas and swimming pools. But as for the raid on Reemtsma, not even the Hamburg police were told what was about to happen. The 1,000-strong Operation Tarot team was secretly billeted at an army barracks outside the city.
Over three days, a fleet of removal vans was used to take away more than 300 large boxes of files, computer hard drives and private notes and diaries.
Eckhard Bobeth, the public prosecutor, said: ‘It could take us four months to go through everything. No charges will be considered against the company or individuals until we have gone through the evidence carefully.’
But sources within the investigation have claimed that documents point to something between 20% and 30% of Reemtsma’s production ending up in the hands of smugglers. This colossal figure, if proved, could mean punitive fines and prison sentences.
‘We are looking at a fine in the realms of not millions of euros but a billion or two, and tough prison sentences to match,’ claimed one investigator. Imperial’s cost-cutting at Reemtsma, in which 800 of the 10,000 workers were sacked, helped the investigation – disgruntled staff are thought to have passed information to the Tarot investigators.
Andreas N.’s lucrative connection-with Reemtsma began before the fall of Communism when it sold cigarettes to the 350,000 soldiers of the Russian army stationed in East Germany. The Russians sold them on the street, making huge profits. By the time they left, an extraordinary network had been created.
In 1995, 1.2 million Davidoff cigarettes were exported to Mongolia where hardly anyone smoked the brand. Similar spectacular exports of millions of cigarettes were made to Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast, a city of no more than 420,000. By the mid-Nineties, Reemtsma’s foreign ‘sales’ had risen 400%.
An Imperial spokeswoman said: ‘We are totally surprised by the action of the German customs and police both in terms of its size and the scale of the allegations. We are co-operating with the authorities.’
She said Imperial, which undertook seven months of due diligence before it bought Reemtsma, was unaware that West was Europe’s leading smuggled brand.
CUSTOMS officers raided Imperial Tobacco’s offices in Hamburg and arrested its sales director following a massive probe into the alleged smuggling of cigarettes into Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s son Uday is believed to be a major figure in the trade.
