In Lucerne a prosecution is pending against address directory swindlers. Nevertheless the characters from this same field now flood Switzerland afresh with dubious offers.
This summer the police in Lucerne confiscated the business files of three companies in this field following a criminal complaint filed by the Swiss federation. The companies, that all belong to the multi-millionaire Meinolf Lüdenbach send out forms world-wide for entries in trade directories. Hidden in the small print of these forms are costs approaching Euro 1000, and the 'contracts' generally extend for several years. If the victims do not pay Lüdenbach's debt collecting firms follow up threatening legal action. For years complaints have been arriving at the offices of the Swiss secretary of state for economics from people who have fallen for the trick.
The huge problems in Switzerland seem not to have influenced the ex-Hamburg Lüdenbach in the least. Now the dubious offers flutter through letter boxes in Switzerland, preferably those of the owners of Swiss internet domains. A Hamburg based company DAD Deutscher Adressdienst GmbH is promoting 'Internetregister der Schweiz' (English: Internet Register for Switzerland). This is not the first time that DAD has been up to tricks with small print in Switzerland. Already earlier this year forms were sent out for a 'Telefax Verzeichnis DAD' (English: Telefax directory DAD).
The managing director of DAD is Inga Kruskop. She is an old aquaintance of Meinolf Lüdenbach. We find her already at the beginning of the 1990's in the Maiwolf dominated Hamburg DWG Druckwerk-Verlag und Verlagsagentur. DWG was wound up in the course of 1998. Kruskop ran the firm for a while, presenting herself at first as still a student.
Inga Kruskop's current firm DAD does not advertise its association with Lüdenbach. However research by the newspaper 'Tagesanzeiger' shows that Lüdenbach's Lucerne company Novachannel AG, on whom the criminal law enforcement authorities now have their eye, has contributed in the setting up and the computer technical know-how involved in DAD's website.
Euro 300,000 fine in Spain
It seems that a lot of IT know-how has accumulated at Novachannel AG. There can be no other explanation for the fact that the website of the address book swindle publisher European City Guide SL (ECG) in Spain also uses Novachannel's technology.
In Barcelona there have been several court decisions on account of misleading advertising against ECG, which belongs to Lüdenbach's Maiwolf Holding. In 2003 ECG was closed-down for a year and fined Euro 300,000. That did not discourage Lüdenbach. Now he blithely continues with ECG from Valencia.
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