A German haulier who faced a jail term due to tax evasion has had the charges against him dropped due to ill-health.
Willi Betz was the man charged by the German authorities after his son Thomas was jailed for five years in February 2008 when he was CEO of the haulage company. However, 81-year-old Willi is to avoid a jail sentence as he is gravely ill.
He was released from custody in July 2008, with the remaining sentence converted to a conditional sentence.
Thomas and Willi Betz, alongside three executives of Willi Betz, allegedly paid more than €4.5m to a senior public official in Georgia and Azerbaijan for permits between 1998 and 2003.
In return, the company allegedly received permission for trans-border truck transport of cargo, which was alleged to result in a €183m boost to its gross profit.
Story filed on August 14, 2009
a little bit of boring news,but it helps keep the wage bills down,as seen in calais every weekend.
The founder of the Betz emporium, has been retired for a few years now and
it is the son who was caught out, however by paying a Set amount of money he has avoided having to go to court ,furthermore he is no longer in the day to day running of the firm, plus he now lives in Switzerland where he has set up a separate extension of the Betz empire ,In Germany ,if you are rich and have the connections to the right lawyers then 9times out of 10, you can get away with paying Blood-money(fine);ONE ONLY HAS TO LOOK BACK AT THE OTHER TWO MAJOR cases,Involving transport firms one from Germany the other from Austria with its Firm which was based in Luxembourg, and had mainly eastern Europeans
working as Driver, One point here what ever one wishes to say Willi Betz looks after its drivers and was a pioneer, He was willing to go where no one else would, and the wages he pays are for each country where the drivers come from
good and one that is excepted as good by the drivers, many other firms pay less,
I agree with britpete,Willi-Betz did nothing that most hauliers and driver’s have been doing for the last forty years,ie,giving backhanders or backsheesh to those in power,be they police,customs or whatever,just to get the job done.
The only difference with Willi-Betz,was that it was on a much grander scale.
You have to realise,that in many parts of the world,it’s a way of life to pay up for just trying to earn a living.
I see Kralowetz are on the road again,seen several of there trucks about lately,including a new 105 XF SSC.
Pete Griff:
Fixemer was taken into the Willi Betz group a long time ago.
ONE ONLY HAS TO LOOK BACK AT THE OTHER TWO MAJOR cases,Involving transport firms one from Germany the other from Austria with its Firm which was based in Luxembourg,
It was in reply to Brit Pete and KW mentioning Kralowetz.
Joachim and Christian Fixemer served time for a similar thing
Nobody ever goes to prison if they have enough money - it’s “better” to have them pay fines, let them in business and tax their profit that to lock them up and cater for them.
Rico’s gone, their trucks with owners by now. They busted quite spectacularly with drivers scattered all over Europe with blocked fuel cards and impounded trucks.
After couple of weeks of no movements some trucks were on the road again to finish contracted jobs, all the rest was returned financial comps and put up for sale. Complete and final end was pronounced sometime in winter. I think Heisterkamp was interested in German branch but the buyout did not go ahead.
As of their drivers, having to spoken to few Czech and Poles, they were quite happy to drive for them - sensible money, sensible driving times, well kept trucks. After the bankcrupt the drivers were even paid owed money - which is not always seen.
Rico’s growth and disaster were based on cheap credit and managers’ believe that if you owe some money you have to borrow even more, get more trucks, more work and paid for debts… I think the company only owned about 200-300 trucks, the others 2000 were on finances.
No. 1 example of exploitation of the Easterners and other dirty tricks was Kralowetz - it all brought him down but not to dust, they’ve been trading uninterruptedly! Did Karl actually went to prison? I know he was sentenced in at least 3 countries (D, L, A) for some funny 6-8months but whether he really went to jail I don’t know.
LKW Augustin was also referred to as “slavetrader” at some point but has since much improved… He was doing it in a different way though…
And there are and there will always be some other “Kralowetz”… I got a good tip on one…