Convicted wind-farm fraudster Holt escapes – posts from Moscow
Hendrik Holt failed to return from an authorised furlough to Berlin prison on 25 August. Images and videos posted on Instagram are believed to be from Moscow.
Search for Hendrik Holt: escape from open detention, greetings from Russia
Entrepreneur Hendrik Holt, convicted of fraud in a gang, failed to return to the correctional facility (JVA) in the south of Berlin on 25 August from an authorised unaccompanied leave. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office has confirmed in writing upon request that a search has been initiated.
"There are now facts that suggest he has fled," a spokesman for the authority explained. Holt had informed the JVA by e-mail that he would not return.
Instagram posts suggest Moscow
On Thursday afternoon, an image and video purportedly from Moscow appeared on the verified Instagram account "hendrikrichardholt" – which has over 60,000 followers. Both posts were uploaded as stories and automatically disappear after one day. The image shows a street at night with the text: "Greetings from Moscow, beautiful here, the caviar is fantastic." The video pans from a pink building to a yellow one.
The F.A.Z. cross-referenced the video material with street views from the Russian map service Yandex Maps. According to this, the pink building is located in the Basmannyj district of Moscow in the north-east of the city. On a yellow neighbouring building, a red poster for an opera performance is visible in a Yandex image from 2025 – the same poster is also visible in the Instagram story.
The weather conditions also match: according to the World Meteorological Organization's weather service, it was cloudy in Moscow on the Thursday afternoon in question, which matches the photograph. However, whether Holt was actually on site at that time is unclear. The possibility that someone else captured the material or that it was manipulated using artificial intelligence cannot be ruled out.
From boy wonder to prisoner
The now 36-year-old Holt was once regarded as an entrepreneurial prodigy from the Emsland region. Together with other participants, he marketed wind parks on a large scale that existed only on paper. Several foreign energy companies fell for the fraud and forged documents and concluded project contracts with Holt's business group.
In spring 2020, Holt was arrested spectacularly at the Berlin luxury hotel Adlon. Investigators seized several luxury limousines, jewellery and cash. In 2022, Osnabrück Regional Court initially sentenced him to seven and a half years imprisonment for fraud; subsequent judgements increased the total prison sentence to more than eight years, for fraud in a gang, bribery and forgery of documents. After Holt and co-defendants withdrew their appeals to the Federal Court of Justice in 2023, the decisions became final.
Berlin detention relaxations under scrutiny
Initially, Holt served his sentence in a Lower Saxony prison before being transferred to Berlin in summer 2023 at his own request. Since spring 2025, he had been allowed to leave the JVA during the day as part of open detention. Berlin uses this instrument to prepare for release significantly more often than other federal states. In Holt's case, Berlin's judiciary has now failed with this practice.
Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung