To date month meter lives and where he retired after he got out of prison. Smita wants to keep his family out of the street pulls his exwife and 2 children live in switzerland. Shmita grew up in castle well when his father was a businessman he discovered at an early age that he had a talent for making money oh we met him at one of his favorite restaurants near panama. Course i was always ambitious i wanted to have a job i was for called when i was in college i sold cars and the 1st to be w. s and then mercedes you have me say 3 more that when i was 16 i sold Life Insurance after school for the 5th year i worked for a company that was owned by the father of one of my friends who live in filthy or if i always wanted to have something to do it but its. Point when i took a wrong turn. And i either didnt notice at the time or realized it too late and. Prosecutors say that she needed company flow text cheated banks and Leasing Companies out of more than 4000000000 marks. Fine a tough man was one of the prosecutors in shmeat us case documents used as evidence at his trial are stored in this basement room at the Prosecutors Office in mannheim. Hoffman carried out extensive interviews with smita we asked him what drove shmita to commit these crimes. 1st he didnt have a lot of friends at school. But at the age of 16 in the mid 1960 s. He got a moped. And submitted it none of the other kids had one more peter thought and he used that moped to make friends with more hot shoe reformed he wanted to be popular on thank you norman and i think that was a basic component of his character and respond to constantly sought the approval of others 50 items the name. Manfred smita founded sloan texas in 1994 and became enormously successful over the next several years. Also forced in france and germany could be pretty intimidating he was always very well dressed with a tailor made suits and a rolex on his wrist. A very impressive and examples out there in other muslim he takes everything he does to extremes. When he goes after Something Else for a chase is it like a terrier until he gets out and tell. The boy who started out with a moped had made it to the top and now owned a fleet of luxury cars. In 1909. 58th birthday with a gala event at ace estate a 2 im back on the outskirts of cars who are. Downtown that i know we invited about 300 people politicians Business Executives sports stars anybody who is anybody by the lord is into it then im a lot of people were dying to get an invitation. Thus it was the event of the year in the state of baton rouge barrack and it went about building work. Shmita lived a life of luxury a private jet with gold faucets. Villas all over the world anything florida europe by and some of. The island 3 yachts the largest was 55 meters long. From the sultan of brunei. Guts not to his extravagance was excessive. On the one hand that sort of lifestyle makes some people envious. Of their i know on the other hand envy is the highest form of recognition night if the former and smita used his position to win approval from people. Because im not sure how to. He had all the toys that anyone could want an old a huge collection of beautiful cars yachts jet aircraft. And even had his own airport who else has that. We took me that she visit the airfield that he used to and its now the culls who bought him bought an international airport. For this report shmita agree to visit some of the places that played an Important Role in his life as he made his way to the tunnel. The used to come here often at one time he had 2 private planes and a helicopter parked here. He built his Business Empire on a Technology Concept that he discovered in the late 1980 s. A u. S. Company called flow mole developed a horizontal drilling system so that utility lines could be laid without causing a lot of environmental damage. Mantra adept at this idea and convinced banks and Leasing Companies to invest in it. We were convinced that this was a great system and the banks thought so as well. They gave us 20000000 to develop the equipment we need and. The sum up an arc of market smita promoted his concept with expensive advantage that were broadcast on prime time german t. V. Stuff made in a gas line and the model on those that were doing it underground would put it underground without taking out you know if its a new systems. But the commercials were deceptive in fact the drilling machines didnt. What had. Rocks and existing lines got in the way. So she does business never really got off the ground but he managed to convince investors that his company was turning a profit. We actually started out piecemeal. Its not like my partner and i actually planned to rip people off but we believed in this concept of. A fall we wanted it to be a success so we manufactured statistics that appeared to make it a success we were counting on future sales and thats how we came up with this system and the thesis is the hand the banks were delighted to help finance this project this on this big 3 dont feel good one because. At the height of the scandal smita had convinced investors that his company had more than 3000 drilling machines in reality there were just under 300. To keep and keeping the scheme going was street is still as a salesman. And he can be very charming. The money. If youve known him a long time like i have thats the less impressed by. But most people were taken in by a charm and to put it bluntly. My guns so. Sweet it hasnt flown over his former Company Headquarters in nearly 2 decades. Today were taking the same routes that he did back then. We were right over it. It would have been a short trip by car but me there preferred to take the chop. But its faster and. No traffic jams either. At the show. He often took investors along the helicopter was on call 24 hours a day for the right over it. And think of it where the 2 lads i. Thought were right there where those containers are. Worked in a luxurious lee appointed office hes come a long way from selling used cars for a living. This is where he built the Business Empire that turned out to be little more than a house of cards. And it came crashing down on february 4th 2000. Police arrested months which meta at his office. For most of his employees this development came as a complete surprise. It was on a friday afternoon when most of the work has were getting ready to go home. Style farm criminal it was the police and some tax investigators i could hardly believe it im against on those but i was shocked its when. Thats that they wouldnt be here if they didnt have a good reason to. Have you called. Police and officials from the Prosecutors Office carried out boxes full of evidence this was shaping up to be the biggest case of financial fraud in postwar german history. 2 decades later this is all that remains of the flow tech sign on top of this building. The company that had been the darling of bankers and politicians went out of business in late 999. This is the 1st time that shmita has been back here since flow techs collapsed. One thing its a very strange feeling to be here after 18 years and 2 weeks. To come. On how this one kopf i can still see the place in my mind but now that im actually here its difficult for me to look back at everything that happened with a list them out of every person on the left. Or the strength that was the hardest day of my life and. He hasnt been back here since the day he was arrested. For the so this was mrs lobs office my secretary a law. Its almost hard to believe that this is the place wish me to i made all of his deals. This is really difficult. If i was her desk. Over here right there. Alone i feel like im in a movie right now and. Before this im glad that i came back here though so that i can somehow is close this chapter of my life. But its not easy and thought. Id like to leave now. The flow tax system worked for 5 years smita kept selling machines even though most of them existent only on paper. He created an elaborate business for a song to fool his investors. We took a creative approach when the Bank Auditors wanted to see some drilling machines and wed switch the identification plates. And show them as much equipment as they wanted. The machine in the holocaust and he did not say important. They kept some of the machines in this warehouse officials from the banks and Leasing Companies had a look around and was satisfied. They came in approached on the id numbers and checked them against the list they had at the office just me and they all matched up. So they also looked at the id plates and they checked out as well. And i was a duplicate not before thats basically how we did it and. Everything seemed fine. To mention its the end of the day he was probably pleased to see how easy it was to deceive people. Isotopes. It all seemed so easy almost a sure thing smita kept playing his shell game with the drilling equipment and the banks kept lending him money after all he had to make the monthly lease payments even if the machines existed only on paper. Throwing glasses. It was a classic pyramid scale and it worked at 1st because he used the new loans to pay off old creditors. But then things got out of hand and it became more and more difficult to control it should be to howden when this violent ended and it got to the point where he had to come up with 60000000 marks a month just to make the leasing payments. No more not least begins again. Thats me to manage to convince the banks to keep giving him money on. The banks made big profits with these flow text deals and guns and all my warm year to many good footy and they kept i know bang for yall again big branches were competing with each other to get his business law tax nomo go to storm all the scheme would never have worked if the banks had played along absolutely not guns of being theres no way. That based under oath was. Deliberately kept his meetings with Bank Executives source he preferred to spend his time flying them around in his helicopter and treating them to sumptuous meals. One is often flew cafe. Fly out to the airfield near serling and and then celebrate with a big lunch. Isnt called the liquid lunches for me doc isnt nice that everyone drank a lot of alcohol. So maybe he was trying to get his guests to be a little less cautious in the. Sometimes theyd fly to the nearby all sons region to sample the excellent local wines or hed invite bankas and Business Partners to his yacht or one of his business. I created situations where i can demonstrate my success to the outside world that was very important for me a few months but i didnt write people out to the yacht to take them to dinner and these displays of success became part of the business model. Because i had to do it to get the scheme going. And the think well cup would get into. A 996. 00 himself an airfield a full Canadian Military facility. The powerful state politician helped him to arrange the deal the honorary chairman of the didnt back Free Democratic policy. Of the recommended with the German Government should sell the airfield and at a reasonable price to about 38000000. 00 marks. The. Window he also arranged for us to get a government subsidy provided that we got final approval and started flight operations. On that was a great deal for us so we went ahead with it. A good deliberately made a point of according to all the titians who could help him grow his Business People who could open doors for him. Toads or and a more low volume quoted youre going more like a respected politician who knew everyone on the counter. Moves. Through more like he met a lot of important people and so it was a smart move for him to make some dominants opens with religion anguish it to shop talk. Show me to also started building a new flow techs headquarters complex at the airfield leading politicians attended the groundbreaking ceremony including the state premier at the time having to fly for. The guests were impressed with his model of the proposed new facility. Smita made a promotional video. On your from here will tackle the projects of the 3rd millennium. Neither claim that this new facility would bring prosperity to the region. State premier teufel took the controls of an excavator at a ceremony to mark the start of construction. But for this report none of the politicians who worked with smita wanted to talk to us about him. After all its a very old story. So obviously shmeat amid the media enjoyed being around politicians and they enjoyed being around him who it was and it was like they acknowledged each others importance of. Showing the. New leader built as a former barn fitting back interior minister who later chaired a state Parliament Committee that investigated the flow text scandal. At this point questions were already being raised about the companys finances but prosecutors and the tax authorities didnt. 1st investigates perhaps because of all the powerful politicians who were linked to shmita. He knew a lot of people in the State Government including the premier mr bowser he must be an important guy the ones who if he wasnt the sons would have had nothing to do with them and what these new truly whos who that influenced the decisions made by your thor it is its not like they said im not going anywhere near that case but they did see that they had to be careful because a few meters status of ice move prominence committee for city center. In july 999 mido threw a huge party to celebrate his 50th birthday heres a picture of the official invitation and the guest list. 300. 00 people were invited it was an event that no one wanted to miss. Among the guests was former barton vis a backstay premier your tosh date they gave the opening speech. The festivities took place at smead us 2 and dad estate. He and his family lived there until his of rest in february 2000 and. My quest for free love my biggest mistake was that i used my Financial Resources from creating an image of success for me to provide not only for the outside world but also for me personally i wanted people to envy me. And when people are jealous of you and you crash and burn they all cheer for him to help. Me on the way to man fits me to his former estates at neah cuz. The prophecy covers 60000. 00 square and he says back then he believes that he does if to live in a place like this among. Them when i look back at those times i cant believe that i didnt realize how serious things have become. The whole thing kept getting bigger and bigger and i just went along with it. Smita says that he was cool up in the spiral of events that he could not escape with. You only have one goal and youll do whatever it takes to achieve it you lose your sense of right and wrong and you do some things that are wrong and are called not merely questionable. If you do things that are illegal but you dont care anymore and if you look. Behind these rules month puts me to entertain his guests and impress them with his wealth but many of his friends from back then are long gone. They came to my parties and had a lot of fun for me its on but when the whole thing collapsed they disappeared on the. M ghost time when he lost everything including the yachts those people didnt want to have anything to do with him. We wouldnt call them friends that would have one of those one so long argument walked out on z. Hot when youre rich and powerful people like to be around you. But if you get into trouble no one wants to know you them its a tool. To drop down a little that would be great. Its hard to believe that man for me to manage to get away with this scheme for so long but the bigger it got the more people believed him. Not to really define what it was all based on power and influence and money and. It was like he was too big to fail maybe some people thought he was but no one seemed to doubt that the company was profitable than he thanked us to cook and it was mine of all he said to himself as i have to show my family in the state about and written back that i can be successful as you can. And thats just what he tried to do you know what else out there in the town. For a time none french media was able to convince people that he was a model entrepreneur. He attracted politicians who thought that he could be useful to them and bankers who thought that hed make them a loss of money. Today he regrets what he did. The shady things into effect bank and give his the primary victims were the banks not any private individuals and just the banks of his help and he wont list is the reason i do have a guilty conscience and if this does for us what we did was wrong and see who the floor i mean quite high and then crash and its all my fault which is a lie and mine if i cant blame anyone else will give me. But most of all of the cause and im sorry about how this affected my family because id made them feel miserable to sub interest is a soccer. Team or. Life lawyer. Culture. High hair. Superman. Superfood stylish style icon. Lifestyle 0. 0. On the cover of superheroes. My mission is clear. And nicole surely explore germany. They dive in. Everything out so theres a lot going on in. Germany tried and tested tricky. In 60 minutes on. Whats the secret behind this classic. Music for sound. As soon as you hear beethoven lose your mind. For the story behind the music was there for the ages reducing. The. Cost. Beethovens 9th before the mortgage starts april news on t. V. W. If you come across a polar bear on the entire wall this and. You dont have a car and i think then youre pretty much. Gone