Pierre Konrad Dadak was caught in Spain on an international arrest order, capping off another chapter in his fable of fraud that spans over a decade now. This period has seen him con millions out of his victims.
According to authorities, the arrested man allegedly passed himself off as an employee of a well-known warehouse in order to steal patrimonial transfers from several of his victims.
While the press statement did not specifically identify the suspect, Spanish police now confirmed to OCCRP that it is in fact Dadak.
He was the centerpiece of a 2018 investigation that exposed his life as a con man, scamming millions from his clients in bogus arms contracts.
His tenure as an “arms trafficker” took him around the world, chasing deals in Gambia, Colombia, Libya, India, Cameroon, the Dutch Caribbean, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, the United Arab Emirates, and Myanmar.
Those Dadak did business with, however, learnt that he would extract millions from them in down payments and luxury expenses before ultimately flying the coop.
Anyone who went after him, or came between him and his money, was threatened with violence.
In 2015, a German lawyer was gruesomely extorted by Dadak after a deal the two were involved in fell through. “I’m going to kill you,” Dadak told the lawyer, in a gamble to squeeze more money out of him. “I’m going to tear out your eyes, I’m going to take them out of your face. I’m going to cut your Achilles tendon with a knife. You won’t be able to walk anymore.”
It is still unknown if he ever truly lived up to his official job title. A Canadian defense broker with whom he did business said “I doubt he ever sold one bullet.”
The life of a fraudster caught up with Dadak, however, in July 2016, when roughly 100 heavily armed Spanish officers smashed their way into his Ibiza villa, which bore the fake credentials of a Guinea-Bissau diplomatic compound.
The man who played the role of an arms trafficker, millionaire, luxury car owner, and boyfriend to a Ukrainian model, was dragged away in nothing more than his underpants and police handcuffs.
He was released on bail in 2017 but received a court order not to exit Spain. Six years later though, and he is already accused of slipping back into old habits, this time out of a warehouse.
Authorities say that Dadak’s home registry, at the time of his 2023 arrest, was still that of a Ibiza villa. In it, they seized numerous electronic devices, keys to another high-end vehicle, large amounts of jewelry, as well as corporate documents.
Investigators managed to backtrace the bank transfers for the million he is on the hook for to other accounts in Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Latvia, Monaco, Poland, Spain, the Arab Emirates, the United States and Vietnam.
Despite the court’s 2017 order barring him from leaving the country, he was arrested at the Barcelona-El Prat Airport after returning from a trip to Dubai.
He was also traveling on a Guinea Bissau diplomatic passport, despite his French-Polish citizenship.
