$30mn bounty set to identify who shot down MH17 in Ukraine

An Emergencies Ministry member walks at a site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. (Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev)

$30 million will be given to those who help identify the perpetrators of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 on board, said an independent German fraud investigation company.

Two months have passed since the Malaysia Airlines plane on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot-down in eastern Ukraine on July 17 with 298 crew and passengers on board who all died in the crash. A preliminary report into the disaster carried out by Dutch investigators and issued on September 9 said that the MH17 crash was a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck the Boeing from the outside.

The investigation company Wifka, based in Schleswig-Holstein, north Germany said that it has been charged with investigating the case of the downing.

“After the terrible assassination or ‘accident’ all political parties, at home and abroad, said they owed it to the victims, their families and the public to clarify the circumstances of the crash and present evidence for what happened. None of this has yet been done,” Wifka said in a statement on its website.

Wifka said that the client who preferred to stay anonymous will pay $30 million dollars to whoever provides evidence that identifies those behind the shoot down.

“The money is securely deposited in Zurich, Switzerland. It will be paid there or in a different neutral place of the whistle-blower’s choice,” the company said adding that the client also offered to give the whistle-blower a new identity.

Flowers and mementos left by local residents at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 are pictured near the settlement of Rozspyne in the Donetsk region July 19, 2014. (Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev)

The investigation company warned that the “details should not lightly be given away in emails or on the phone.”

“Everyone can be bought. It’s just a question of how much,” finance magazine Capital quoted detective Josef Resch leading the probe as saying.

Possibly the largest bounty in history will be given for the information on who shot down MH17, who gave the order to shoot down the plane and who is covering up their tracks, according to Wifka. The client also wants to know if it was by accident and not out of political, economic or military motivation. Wifka added that the whistleblower also needs to provide details on the circumstances that led to the shoot down and the information on what happened to the people involved and the weapon used.

Detective Resch was previously involved in the scandalous Florian Homm’s case in 2012 and 2013. He helped expose the hedge fund manager who disappeared in 2007 after being charged with investment fraud in the US.

One of the largest bounties in history – a $30 million reward – was paid by the US Bush administration to an informant for intelligence that led to the deaths of Saddam's sons in July 2003. The two informants received $15 million each for Uday and Qusay Hussein for the tip leading US troops to the villa in Mosul.

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