German investigators closing in on Fuentes clients

By Susan Westemeyer

German investigators from four different cities met on Thursday to coordinate their investigations of doping in cycling, announcing an investigation of Jörg Jaksche and apparently getting closer to taking action against Jan Ullrich, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Bundeskriminalamt (federal police) in Wiesbaden hosted the meeting, which attracted investigators from Freiburg, Göttingen, Ansbach and Bonn.

The Freiburg investigators are looking into Drs. Andreas Schmid and Lothar Heinrich, the former Telekom/T-Mobile team doctors who recently admitted to supplying doping products to the team in the 1990s. Göttingen is investigating a doctor who is alleged to have been Fuentes' German contact.

The newest investigation is in Ansbach, the hometown of Jörg Jaksche, who lives in Kitzbühel, Austria. The newspaper says that investigators ran across repeated references to Jaksche in the Fuentes documents. Since his former team, Liberty Seguros, was allegedly involved in the doping scheme, he could not be accused of defrauding the team. "So the Ansbachers got the idea that Jaksche could have defrauded race organizers," according to the newspaper.

Bonn is investigating both Jan Ullrich on charges of defrauding his former team, T-Mobile, and his former advisor Rudy Pevenage for being an accessory and for violations of drug laws. The newspaper said that the investigators have received documents from Belgium, taken in a search of Pevenage's premises, which show that "Ullrich's helpers, especially Pevenage, had a close contact to Fuentes."

In addition, there is supposedly new information out of Switerzland, where Ullrich lives. In the next few weeks, it will be decided whether documents taken from his house there will be sent to Germany, the "Süddeutsche" reported. It further reported that "A Swiss insider, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the documents are supposed to be 'really explosive.' They allegedly show 'very clearly the link between Ullrich and Fuentes."