Investor Hannes Kulvik does not comment on Zacharias Sundström's estimates of the recipients of the missing millions: “I guess you have to read the book.”
Former lawyer Zacharias Sundström, 87, sheds light on one of the biggest mysteries of Finland's casino years, which is related to the missing millions of the so-called Kouri stores. In the book, Sundström tells for the first time in detail about the events of which he was the key implementer.
At the end of the 1980s, Kouri deals were used to arrange the holdings of large Finnish companies and the then large commercial banks, SYP and KOP.
Sundström is an open journalist by Staffan Bruun in the biography he is writing The most expensive lawyer in Finlandwhich appeared on Wednesday, published by WSOY.
The Kouri deals were a series of events in which Kansallispankki was financed by an investor Pentti Kouria and the owner behind the mysterious Swiss company Khotso made millions in profits from the deals in the late 1980s. Among other things, the beneficiaries of the mysterious Khotso lost at least approximately 120 million marks in the course of the events.
Finland The taxman once looked like an investor Hannes Kulvik too. Their sum, including default interest and increases, rose to FIM 120 million, which in today's money is about EUR 33 million.
The tax collector applied to the Supreme Administrative Court (KHO) in the end for about 250 million marks in tax receivables from Kulvik, or about 66 million euros in current value. In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court rejected the taxpayer's claims in 1999.
Kulvik told the public and in court from the beginning that the capital gains claimed by the taxman went to his foreign investment clients and not to himself.
As a lawyer Zacharias Sundström, who has worked for a long time, says in a recent book that he was behind the founding of companies for Kouri and Kulvik in Finland, Switzerland, Jersey and the Virgin Islands.
One of the companies he founded was named Khotso, which means peace in the Sesotho language. Sesotho is a Bantu language spoken in South Africa.
Sundström says in the book that he had founded Khotso SA for Kulvik and his wife. According to Sundström, he did not participate in any transaction that would have involved new owners in addition to the Kulviks.
“Of course, that does not mean that such a transaction could not have taken place without my knowledge,” Sundström writes.
In the book However, Sundström comes to the same conclusion as Pentti Kouri. Kouri and Kulvik had argued about the distribution of profits from the Kouri stores.
“I have exactly the same idea as Pentti Kour: the sole owner of Khotso was Hannes Kulvik and his wife,” Sundström says in the book.
Sundström points out that Kulvik consistently claimed that he was only an agent of the real owners of Khotso and Avala: “He only claimed to have collected a fee for the investment advice he gave to the shareholders of Khotso SA.”
Hannes Kulvik in October 2022.
Helsinki On Monday, Sanomat reached Hannes Kulvik, who is currently based in Britain. HS asked him for a comment on the fact that, according to Zacharias Sundström's biography, Khotso's sole owner was Hannes Kulvik and his wife.
“You probably have to read the book. [ – – ] I'm not taking a stand under any circumstances,” says Kulvik.
He says he “maybe read” the book if he can.
“Let's see then,” Kulvik says at the end.
Pentti Kouri can no longer be asked about Kouri stores, as he died at the age of 59 in 2009.
#Books #lawyer #mystery #Kouri #stores #Khotso39s #sole #owner #Hannes #Kulvik #wife
