Eduard Seidel is a German businessman who worked for

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

in Nigeria until 2005. Colleagues referred to him as the king of Nigeria. In 2008, he was convicted in the "biggest bribe scandal in German history" with a one-year suspended prison sentence. As of 2022, prosecutors were unaware of Seidel's

shell companies A shell corporation is a company or corporation with no significant assets or operations often formed to obtain financing before beginning business. Shell companies were primarily vehicles for lawfully hiding the identity of their beneficial ...

and

Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group AG (, ) was a global Investment banking, investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. According to UBS, eventually Credit Suisse was to be fully integrated into UBS. While the integration ...

accounts holding more than 54.5 million Swiss francs.

Career

Seidel spent almost his entire career at

. In 1985, he took over its communications division. He said his predecessor taught him how to win contracts with Nigeria's state-owned telecommunications company NITEL with bribes, a practice which until 1999 was legal in Germany. Colleagues referred to him as the king of Nigeria. In 2005, Seidel stepped down. Before he left Siemens in 2004, he had earned 300.000 Euros per year. In 2006, German authorities raided the Siemens headquarters and Seidel confessed his role in the bribery scheme. In 2007 his name was entered on

World-Check World-Check is a database of politically exposed persons (PEPs) and 'heightened risk' individuals and organizations. World Check formed part of the Thomson Reuters Risk Management Solutions suite before being transferred to Refinitiv after a merg ...

. In 2008 Seidel faced trial in Germany for bribing foreign officials in the "biggest bribe scandal in German history". He received a one-year suspended prison sentence, fine and costs of 240,000 euros. In 2010, the Nigerian

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is a Nigerian law enforcement and anti-graft agency that investigates financial crimes and unknown transactions such as advance fee fraud (419 fraud) and money laundering. The EFCC was establ ...

summoned him to appear at the Abuja High Court in connection with the Siemens 17.5 million Euros scam, but he remained at large. In 2008, Seidel founded a

shell company A shell corporation is a company or corporation with no significant assets or operations often formed to obtain financing before beginning business. Shell companies were primarily vehicles for lawfully hiding the identity of their beneficial ...

on the British Virgin Islands, which in 2009 bought four real estate objects in Dubai, amongst them a mansion on The Palm Jumeirah, as revealed in the 2021

Pandora Papers The Pandora Papers are 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published beginning on 3 October 2021. The leak exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 ...

. Seidel has held more than 54.5 million Swiss francs ($41.9 million) in 6

bank accounts, one of which was active until at least 2016, as revealed in the 2022 Suisse secrets. Credit Suisse never reported Seidel to the German prosecution as suspicious, even though his salary did not explain the amount in his Credit Suisse accounts.

Personal life

Seidel is married. His wife founded a company with the help of the Nigerian minister of communications, which had "never developed any business activity."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seidel, Eduard Living people German white-collar criminals 20th-century German businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century German businesspeople