Porsche Tuner Gemballa Found Dead

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

Uwe Gemballa's body was found in South Africa. The circumstances surrounding the death of the former Porsche tuner are still unclear.

Half a year after the disappearance of the Stuttgart Porsche tuner Uwe Gemballa, the body of a German was found in South Africa. "We are pretty sure that it is," said a police spokesman on Sunday for the dpa news agency in South Africa. An autopsy should now bring final certainty. On Saturday, the online medium «Stern.de» reported on Gemballa's death.

Filed for bankruptcy in February

According to the South African police, the body was discovered last Tuesday in Atteridgeville, west of the capital Pretoria. The medical examinations should also clarify how the man died. The police investigation has only just begun, the spokesman said. He denied media reports of arrests related to the case.

«Stern.de» had reported that Gemballa might have been involved in illegal money laundering transactions and killed by his business partners. This would have resulted from research by the magazine. The South African authorities had initially suspected that Gemballa had wanted to withdraw from Germany because of the bankruptcy of his company Gemballa Automobiltechnik GmbH & Co. The company had filed for bankruptcy shortly after Gemballa's disappearance in February, and the public prosecutor's office was investigating the company boss on suspicion of bankruptcy.

Mysterious case

The case remains mysterious even after the body is found. The 54-year-old disappeared in Johannesburg shortly after arriving from Dubai on February 8th. The next day, according to the German police, he had reported an accident to his wife by telephone and said that he needed a large amount of money. Then his track was lost.

The Gemballa company, based in Leonberg near Stuttgart, specializes in the refinement of high-quality sports cars, mostly from the Porsche brand. According to earlier company information, a tuned car costs between 250,000 and 700,000 euros. (dpa)