Werner Mauss
Encyclopedia
Werner Mauss initially worked as a private investigator
for various German companies. Since 1965 he exclusively worked as a civilian
employee for police
authorities and intelligence services. The name Mauss became known to the general public in association with several political conflicts and alleged scandal
s.
earned him contacts to police authorities (amongst others Federal Criminal Agency, BKA), to intelligence services (BND) and to politics
. In the 1990s his contacts extended into the Federal Chancellery. There the direct report for Mauss was the coordinator for the intelligence services of the Kohl
government, then Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer.
, strategy
and conspiracy
. Soon Mauss no longer worked for private clients such as insurance
companies; he rather started to work exclusively for security authorities, namely undercover inside the criminal milieu. In 1969 Mauss for the first time worked by order and on account of the newly established investigation unit of the Federal Criminal agency BKA. With the collaboration of Mauss the most wanted fugitives, alleged police murderer Alfred Lecki and robber Werner Derks could be traced in Alicante
and Marbella
and eventually arrested by the police.
toxin, to the arrest of the alleged Red Army Faction
terrorist Rolf Pohle in Athens
, to the release of the Hisbollah-hostages Rudolf Cordes and Alfred Schmidt
in Lebanon
and to the apprehension of the culprits as well as the return of the treasure of the Cologne Cathedral
.
to the detriment of an insurance company against the suspect Düe.
On August 5, 1982 Düe was arrested and on January 4, 1984 was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison
. In the court of appeal all conspiratorially secured evidences had been disregarded whereupon Düe had to be acquitted on March 13, 1989 for want of evidence. The civil division of the district court in Hannover convicted Düe -despite the acquittal
- on grounds of the disregarded evidence in the course of the court of appeal on account of wilful deceit and gross negligence
. Coincidentally his action for damages and his request for granting costs of litigation against the insurance company in the amount of 73 million DM had been overruled. The Federal Court of Justice affirmed the judgement. In June 2000, almost twenty years later, 10.9 kilograms of the allegedly stolen jewellery
–originally ticketed- could be secured. At that time the statute of limitation had been exceeded.
, especially Colombia
. There he was deployed –initially on behalf of the Mannesmann AG- in order to enforce the construction of a pipeline under resistance of the National Liberation Army
guerrilla group (ELN) and to rescue four kidnapped managers of the company.
Mauss stood up for human rights
and for the population living below the margin of subsistence in that area. In connection with the Catholic Church he founded an aid organisation. Therefore, on September 9, 1985, he was awarded the Peace Prize of Sarare/Colombia by the Apostolic Vicariate of Arauca. In the 1990s he renewed his former contacts in Colombia, as he initiated a peace process
supported by the German government, which stipulated, that the European nationals, who had been kidnapped and kept hostage
in Colombia, be set free without payment of ransom
.
After having initiated a round table in Bonn
, Mauss subsequently negotiated the release of several European hostages from the ELN. The exact circumstances and his role in the entire operation was put into question by various observers, who due to security reasons had not been instructed on the circumstances of the special operation.
The ruling of the high tribunal of Antioquia, dated May 20, 1998, certified that the arrest of Mauss by the Medellín
police on November 17, 1996, as he was trying to leave the country together with the German hostage, who had previously been kidnapped by local criminals, and subsequently released by the ELN due to former negotiations, was caused by an intrigue. Mauss and his wife were –as later on was established- innocently imprisoned for nine months in pre-trial confinement. The preliminary proceedings were eventually suspended on May 20, 1998. Mauss and his wife were cleared on all accounts (known as Preclusión in Colombian Law). The court had declared the arrest illegal.
After the conclusion of the Colombian court proceedings, Mauss took legal action against initial media reports that a ransom had allegedly been paid. These reports had to be rectified. State Minister Schmidbauer later on declared that the contacts of Mauss and his wife to the ELN were transparent and in compliance with the viewpoint of the German Federal government
.
After being released from pre-trial confinement in June 1997, Mauss -backed by President Ernesto Samper
, the national Peace Commission of Colombia, the German Bishops Conference, and the German Federal Government- continued to negotiate in the Colombian jungle. In July 1998, with the authorization of all conflict parties, Mauss accompanied Pablo Beltrán, at that time the military chief of the Colombian ELN, for peace negotiations to Germany. Under the patronage of the German Bishops Conference, representatives of the Colombian government as well as the Colombian Civil Society met with leaders of the guerrilla group ELN first in Mainz
, and afterwards at the monastery Himmelspforten near Würzburg
.
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
for various German companies. Since 1965 he exclusively worked as a civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
employee for police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
authorities and intelligence services. The name Mauss became known to the general public in association with several political conflicts and alleged scandal
Scandal
A scandal is a widely publicized allegation or set of allegations that damages the reputation of an institution, individual or creed...
s.
Activities
His activities as an informantInformant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
earned him contacts to police authorities (amongst others Federal Criminal Agency, BKA), to intelligence services (BND) and to politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
. In the 1990s his contacts extended into the Federal Chancellery. There the direct report for Mauss was the coordinator for the intelligence services of the Kohl
Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
government, then Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer.
Beginnings of his career
At the age of twenty Mauss founded a detective agency in Essen. Besides his job as a plain private detective he received private training by police instructors as a lone fighter and investigator as well as education in criminalistics, criminal lawCriminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...
, strategy
Strategy
Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...
and conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
. Soon Mauss no longer worked for private clients such as insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
companies; he rather started to work exclusively for security authorities, namely undercover inside the criminal milieu. In 1969 Mauss for the first time worked by order and on account of the newly established investigation unit of the Federal Criminal agency BKA. With the collaboration of Mauss the most wanted fugitives, alleged police murderer Alfred Lecki and robber Werner Derks could be traced in Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
and Marbella
Marbella
Marbella is a town in Andalusia, Spain. It is situated on the Mediterranean Sea, in the province of Málaga, beneath the La Concha mountain. In 2000 the city had 98,823 inhabitants, in 2004, 116,234, in 2010 approximately 135,000....
and eventually arrested by the police.
Cover
Mauss was associated with numerous spectacular criminal cases. However, the exact courses of events and his participation have merely become clear which in itself added to the promotion of a legendary aura. The name of Mauss had been linked to the locating of the SevesoSeveso
Seveso is a town and comune in the Province of Monza and Brianza, in the Region of Lombardy. The economy of the town has traditionally been based around the furniture industry....
toxin, to the arrest of the alleged Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
terrorist Rolf Pohle in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, to the release of the Hisbollah-hostages Rudolf Cordes and Alfred Schmidt
Alfred Schmidt
Alfred Schmidt is a German philosopher.Schmidt studied at first history and English and classical philology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt and later philosophy and sociology. He was a student of Theodor W...
in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and to the apprehension of the culprits as well as the return of the treasure of the Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...
.
The first photograph revealed to the press
Not until 1983 in connection with a court proceeding against the jeweller René Düe a first photograph of Werner Mauss got to the press. Mauss investigated in collaboration with a special taskforce on account of fraudFraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
to the detriment of an insurance company against the suspect Düe.
On August 5, 1982 Düe was arrested and on January 4, 1984 was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
. In the court of appeal all conspiratorially secured evidences had been disregarded whereupon Düe had to be acquitted on March 13, 1989 for want of evidence. The civil division of the district court in Hannover convicted Düe -despite the acquittal
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
- on grounds of the disregarded evidence in the course of the court of appeal on account of wilful deceit and gross negligence
Gross negligence
Gross negligence is a legal concept which means serious carelessness. Negligence is the opposite of diligence, or being careful. The standard of ordinary negligence is what conduct one expects from the proverbial "reasonable person"...
. Coincidentally his action for damages and his request for granting costs of litigation against the insurance company in the amount of 73 million DM had been overruled. The Federal Court of Justice affirmed the judgement. In June 2000, almost twenty years later, 10.9 kilograms of the allegedly stolen jewellery
Jewellery
Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...
–originally ticketed- could be secured. At that time the statute of limitation had been exceeded.
Activities in South America
In the mid-1980s, Mauss operated increasingly in South AmericaSouth America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, especially Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
. There he was deployed –initially on behalf of the Mannesmann AG- in order to enforce the construction of a pipeline under resistance of the National Liberation Army
National Liberation Army (Colombia)
National Liberation Army is a revolutionary, avowed Marxist guerrilla group that has been operating in several regions of Colombia since 1964....
guerrilla group (ELN) and to rescue four kidnapped managers of the company.
Mauss stood up for human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and for the population living below the margin of subsistence in that area. In connection with the Catholic Church he founded an aid organisation. Therefore, on September 9, 1985, he was awarded the Peace Prize of Sarare/Colombia by the Apostolic Vicariate of Arauca. In the 1990s he renewed his former contacts in Colombia, as he initiated a peace process
Peace process
Peace process may refer to:* in general:** Peacebuilding** Conflict resolution* specifically:** Northern Ireland peace process, efforts from c.1993 to end "the Troubles"...
supported by the German government, which stipulated, that the European nationals, who had been kidnapped and kept hostage
Hostage
A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...
in Colombia, be set free without payment of ransom
Ransom
Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.In an early German law, a similar concept was called bad influence...
.
After having initiated a round table in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, Mauss subsequently negotiated the release of several European hostages from the ELN. The exact circumstances and his role in the entire operation was put into question by various observers, who due to security reasons had not been instructed on the circumstances of the special operation.
The ruling of the high tribunal of Antioquia, dated May 20, 1998, certified that the arrest of Mauss by the Medellín
Medellín
Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...
police on November 17, 1996, as he was trying to leave the country together with the German hostage, who had previously been kidnapped by local criminals, and subsequently released by the ELN due to former negotiations, was caused by an intrigue. Mauss and his wife were –as later on was established- innocently imprisoned for nine months in pre-trial confinement. The preliminary proceedings were eventually suspended on May 20, 1998. Mauss and his wife were cleared on all accounts (known as Preclusión in Colombian Law). The court had declared the arrest illegal.
After the conclusion of the Colombian court proceedings, Mauss took legal action against initial media reports that a ransom had allegedly been paid. These reports had to be rectified. State Minister Schmidbauer later on declared that the contacts of Mauss and his wife to the ELN were transparent and in compliance with the viewpoint of the German Federal government
Federal government
The federal government is the common government of a federation. The structure of federal governments varies from institution to institution. Based on a broad definition of a basic federal political system, there are two or more levels of government that exist within an established territory and...
.
After being released from pre-trial confinement in June 1997, Mauss -backed by President Ernesto Samper
Ernesto Samper
Ernesto Samper Pizano is a Colombian politician. He served as the President of Colombia from August 7, 1994 to August 7, 1998, representing the Liberal Party. He was involved in the 8000 process scandal, which takes its name from the folio number assigned to it by the chief prosecutor's office...
, the national Peace Commission of Colombia, the German Bishops Conference, and the German Federal Government- continued to negotiate in the Colombian jungle. In July 1998, with the authorization of all conflict parties, Mauss accompanied Pablo Beltrán, at that time the military chief of the Colombian ELN, for peace negotiations to Germany. Under the patronage of the German Bishops Conference, representatives of the Colombian government as well as the Colombian Civil Society met with leaders of the guerrilla group ELN first in Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
, and afterwards at the monastery Himmelspforten near Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
.
