Monday, October 04, 2010

White mischief . . .

THE TIMES LIVE newspaper, in South Africa, has a report on the demise of Porsche tuner Uwe Gemballa. For thirty years, Uwe had been doing well, it seems, "tuning" Porsches and Ferraris for very rich people who demand that little extra in performance. According to Sashni Pather, Werner Swart and Shanaaz Eggington's article, "Tycoon executed", it was not a simple murder or mugging-gone-wrong: "Killing points to sinister international syndicate of money launderers". For months, rumors abounded. According to Jalopnik,

. . . friends say Gemballa may have "chose to disappear" after an argument with his wife.

It's an international mystery not even the sharpest gumshoe can solve. Golden haired German tuning king Uwe Gemballa, famous for his wild Porsches, flies to South Africa in February to meet with fugitive Czech Billionaire Radovan Krejcir and promptly disappears after calling his wife for money.

Initially, the police suspect a kidnapping but then it turns out he filed for insolvency before he left the country and is under investigation by the German Police for financial impropriety. There are rumors he may be in Angola, Namibia, still in South Africa or maybe even dead.

According to the Times,

Gemballa was shot execution-style in the head. His hands were bound behind his back and his body was wrapped and dumped in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria.

Somehow, it doesn't seem like road rage.

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