In January 2019, alleged German cybercrime mastermind Uwe Lenhoff was arrested after years of investigation by European law enforcement. Lenhoff was not charged with any crime. He died in custody in Germany in July 2020. One of his partners was Amsterdam-based real estate investor Dirk-Jan Bakker, also a shareholder in Lenhoff’s listed Veltyco Group PLC (now Bet90 Holdings PLC). Bakker has recently invested massively in luxury real estate in Austria. Here is the update.
The Veltyco Legacy
Uwe Lenhoff and Dirk-Jan Bakker were very close until shortly before Lenhoff’s arrest and the collapse of his cybercrime empire. Bakker had not only invested in Lenhoff’s cybercrime project. He also made his yacht available to the latter. Bakker, like Lenhoff, was also involved in online gambling. In an interview with an Austrian medium, Bakker denies having been on friendly terms with Lenhoff. However, the criminal records speak a different language.
As the criminal files also record, Lenhoff proudly said he would hold huge real estate investments in Amsterdam with his partners. Bakker also introduced Lenhoff and Rudolf Booker, the disgraced founder and CEO of Payvision. Lenhoff has subsequently referred many operators of broker scams, such as Gal Barak, to Payvision and helped drive up their transaction volume and valuation. Booker used this tailwind to sell Payvision to ING for around €360 million. ING has since closed Payvision again after the extent of the dark dealings became apparent.
The Austrian Real-Estate Legacy
Lenhoff was a big fan of Austria and enjoyed spending time in the Arlberg and Kitzbühel. That’s also where he met Bakker. The Arlberg is also where Bakker invests luxury properties he purchased in 2022 from Russian-born Cypriot nationals.
The Russian-born Olga Tanatarova, currently holding a “Golden Cypriot” passport, has acquired coveted plots of land on the Arlberg, including luxury chalets under construction, in an auction. She resold the auctioned properties for a total of € 12,205,000 to three Austrian limited companies controlled by Lenhoff’s former business partner, the Dutch real-estate investor Dirk-Jan Bakker: GamsLodge GmbH, SteinLodge GmbH, Chalet Laurus GmbH, and Blue Mountain Lodge GmbH. Via Blue Alpine Enterprise GmbH & Co KG, the shares are ultimately held by Bakker, who is also the managing director.
In June 2023, Bakker resold the shares of SteinLodge GmbH to KaRo B.V. and AGIH B.V., also registered in the Netherlands. The Dutch national Adriaanse Cornelis is the new director of SteinLodge.
However, according to the information available to FinTelegram, Bakker has problems with the former Austrian owner of the chalets. The owner accuses Bakker of having cheated him of several million during the acquisition. The latter denies the accusations. An Austrian media also reported the suspicion of sanctions evasion in connection with the chalets.
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