Austrian police face investigation after escorting fake Jeff Bezos

If Jeff Bezos had turned up at your company’s biggest celebration of the year, you would probably know about it. At Haidlmair in Austria, guests were given quite a spectacle when a helicopter arrived carrying a man who looked every inch the Amazon founder, accompanied by three armed police officers, there was only one problem: it wasn’t Jeff Bezos.

The man was a professional impersonator, the three police officers were very real, and their involvement has now prompted an internal investigation and scrutiny from Austria’s Federal Bureau for the Prevention and Fight against Corruption (BAK). 

The Bezos surprise at an Austrian factory

The unusual arrival took place in August at a major company celebration held by Austrian tool manufacturer Haidlmair in Micheldorf, in Upper Austria. The company was celebrating a huge Amazon contract, described as the biggest order in its history. The project involves 170 injection moulding tools and 2,800 tonnes of processed steel. The celebration itself had plenty going on, including live music, a motocross display and a roast pig. Then the helicopter arrived.

A bald man with a neatly trimmed beard, aviator sunglasses and a suit stepped out, accompanied by three masked and heavily armed officers. For guests, the message was clear: Jeff Bezos had apparently come to celebrate the deal personally.  The man was actually a paid Bezos double who had been hired for the event. He was taken through the company’s factory halls while the officers accompanied him. The joke, however, depended on one very real part of the performance: the police.

Why were real police officers involved?

The three officers belonged to the Upper Austrian Schnelle Interventionsgruppe (SIG), a specialist rapid intervention unit based in Linz. According to Der Standard, Haidlmair company president Mario Haidlmair contacted Linz police chief Klaus Hübner about providing the escort. The two men had known each other for years. Haidlmair said the request initially struck Hübner as unusual, but the police chief eventually agreed. According to the company boss, the event was seen as an opportunity to showcase police work and potentially help with recruitment and employer branding. 

That decision is now being examined, Austrian police have confirmed that all those involved are subject to an internal disciplinary review, although officials have declined to provide further details while the process is ongoing.  There is also a question over whether the SIG was the appropriate unit for the job. Person protection in Austria normally falls to the country’s state security authorities and the Cobra special operations unit. The SIG officers involved do not have specific training in personal protection, according to Der Standard. 

Who is paying for the police escort?

Another unanswered question is the bill. Haidlmair says he offered from the outset to cover the cost of the police deployment. However, the company had not received an invoice at the time of the reports.

Der Standard also reported that the officers may have been able to record their time as overtime, including an additional danger allowance, although police have not confirmed the details because of the ongoing review.  There are questions, too, about who authorised the deployment and why the local police service in Kirchdorf does not appear to have been involved in arranging it.

Austria’s anti-corruption agency is now looking into it

The case has also reached Austria’s Federal Bureau for the Prevention and Fight against Corruption, known as the BAK. Its involvement does not mean corruption has been established. The authorities are examining the circumstances surrounding the use of police officers at the private event, including questions around possible preferential treatment, authority and the use of public resources. 

There is an additional irony to the whole affair. Austrian police protection is reserved for a small number of senior state officials, such as the president and ministers. According to police sources cited in reports, even the real Jeff Bezos would not ordinarily be entitled to a state police escort.  So while the fake Bezos has presumably completed his part of the performance, the questions surrounding the very real police escort are only just beginning.