A wealthy Swiss financial adviser, who has boasted ties to Persian Gulf royalty and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, pleaded guilty yesterday to engineering an international stock fraud.
Nearly a year after he was lured to the Big Apple by an undercover G-man and then arrested for scheming to manipulate shares of his shell company, Axius Inc., Roland Kaufmann, 59, confessed to being nothing more than a slimy stock pumper.
“I did this knowingly and intentionally,” the patrician Kaufmann told Brooklyn federal Judge John Gleeson.
Kaufmann admitted to flying to New York last spring from Dubai, where he keeps a second home, as part of a shady plan to bribe brokers to help drive up Axius’ share price.
Unfortunately for Kaufmann, the American middleman who promised to help him — and his crooked pal, Jean-Pierre Neuhaus — carry out the scheme turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
Fellow Swiss national Neuhaus pleaded guilty in October.
Kaufmann faces up to five years in prison and has agreed to pay victims restitution of $298,740.
He may be permitted to serve the prison sentence in Switzerland, officials said.
Yesterday’s guilty plea marks a dramatic turn from his early days in New York.
When FBI agents approached him and Neuhaus in front of Manhattan’s luxurious Carlyle Hotel in March, Kaufmann claimed diplomatic immunity, court records show.
“Do you know who I am?” Kaufmann asked an agent. “I work for the King of Saudi Arabia. I am a diplomat.”
But Kaufmann — who authorities say is definitely not a diplomat — quickly backed down when agents offered to call the Saudi consulate.
Kaufmann has also claimed ties to a member of Dubai’s ruling family, as well as Buffett.
In one phone call with the FBI agent posing as the middleman, Kaufmann said he worked on an early financial deal for Berkshire Hathaway, court records show.
In another secretly recorded call, the Swiss scammer described himself as a financial consultant to one of the ranking members of the royal family of the United Arab Emirates.
Kaufmann, who owns a home in a hillside enclave of villas along the Gold Coast of Lake Zurich, one of the wealthiest communities in Switzerland, has been living in an apartment in Brooklyn since he was placed under house arrest, sources said.
Prosecutors said yesterday the Kaufmann case proves they will search the world over to catch crooks who cheat US investors.
“He took the crooked path and now faces the prospect of years in prison,” said Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer. “Although he committed his crimes from outside the United States, US authorities tracked him down.”
Kaufmann declined to comment.