A prominent German journalist and Russia specialist had reportedly received at least €600,000 (around $730,000 at the time) in unreported offshore payments from firms connected to a businessman close to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Due to this leak, a German publisher has stated that it would cease sales of the author's books.
Hubert Seipel, an acclaimed filmmaker and author, has revealed that he was financially supported to write two books that are seen to be favorable to Putin and which detail his ascent to power.
The data originated from the Cyprus Confidential project, an archive of 3.6 million offshore documents that were released to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Paper Trail Media in Germany. The ICIJ and Paper Trail Media then made the data available to other news organizations.
Books Are Off the Shelves
Hoffmann und Campe, a Hamburg-based publishing house, said on Wednesday, November 15, that it would be pulling Seipel's books off shelves. Two books were written on the Russian president, and the journalist received payments from firms tied to the oligarch Alexei Mordashov, a steel and financial mogul who was sanctioned last year for his close links to the Kremlin.
According to the Guardian, Seipel's books would no longer be available for purchase from Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, said a company representative, who added that they had no idea of the actual events described in the reports.
NDR, the German broadcasting company for which Seipel made a documentary in which he conducted a series of one-on-one interviews with Putin, said in a statement that it had begun an inquiry with an external adjudicator. It said that it was putting the films on hold indefinitely and that it was exploring legal action against Seipel.
The Author's Ties to Putin and His Ally
Seipel admitted that he had accepted money from Mordashov. He clarified that he had never accepted payment from outside sources for movies or TV appearances and that Mordashov's backing pertained only to the book initiatives. Also, he was quite emphatic about the fact that he had been given complete control over the content he published.
Seipel met Putin nearly 100 times and interviewed him many times, gaining prime-time airing spots for his 2012 documentary. His close relationship with Putin and his status as one of Germany's leading independent experts on Russia made him a popular journalist on mainstream television following the 2014 takeover of Crimea and much more so since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Both works, a biography published in 2015 titled Putin: Inner Views of Power and a political analysis titled Putin's Power: Why Europe Needs Russia, were written in German and have now been translated into a number of other languages.
