Wildlife boss jailed for duping animal lovers
Date: 03-Apr-03
Country: GERMANY
Wolfgang Ullrich, 58, was convicted of 137 separate counts of fraud over a five-year period from 1994 to 1999 when he was head of the Deutsches Tierhilfswerk, Germany's largest independent animal welfare group with some 230,000 members.
Thai police first arrested Ullrich, who ran a restaurant business in the resort of Pattaya, in 1998 after investigating him for tax evasion.
Subsequent investigations into his finances uncovered a front company Ullrich had set up in Switzerland, into which he channelled donations from animal lovers.
Deutsches Tierhilfswerk said it would now try to sue for compensation.
