Missing billionaire faked death to live with mistress in Moscow, investigations claims

A German billionaire who vanished under mysterious circumstances under Switzerland’s iconic Matterhorn peak six years ago is now suspected to be living in Moscow with his Russian mistress, an investigation has claimed.

An investigation by German broadcaster RTL sheds new light on the 2018 disappearance of billionaire Karl-Erivan Haub.

Haub was training for a ski mountaineering race when he disappeared in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland.

Despite authorities launching a six-day search, which saw five helicopters and teams of alpine rescuers canvass the area, no sign of the then-58-year-old billionaire was ever found.

In 2021, a German court declared him legally dead.

However, RTL’s investigative team claims to have identified Haub, living in Moscow, with a woman named Veronika Ermilova.

The report alleges Haub had been carrying on a secret double life with Ermilova, who reportedly has ties to a Russian event management agency.

The report suggests Haub may have been involved in a secret relationship with Ermilova, who allegedly has ties to Russian intelligence.

The team alleged that Ermilova—who worked for an event management agency, and with whom Haub had allegedly been leading a secret double life.

An investigative journalist, Liv von Boetticher, who led the RTL team, told German magazine Capital that “There are strong indications that he could have caused his disappearance intentionally” and “at least parts of his family were aware of it and, against their better judgment, kept this secret from the Cologne District Court and the public.”

Boetticher said she and her team had “journalistically processed our research results over a period of three years” and hoped that the public prosecutor would initiate an official investigation “based on what we considered to be overwhelming evidence.”

“We had also informed the Cologne District Court in 2021 of our strong doubts about Mr. Haub’s death. The step of filing a criminal complaint against Christian Haub in May 2023 is certainly unusual, but we saw it as the last resort to officially initiate an investigation and clarify the background to the mysterious disappearance of Karl-Erivan Haub,” she said.