Quick Facts
Biography
Matthias Warnig (born 26 July 1955) is a former member of the Stasi and currently the Managing Director (CEO) of the Nord Stream AG, a company for construction and operation of the Nord Stream submarine gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
Biography
In 1974 Warnig started his career at the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany.
Warnig allegedly worked with KGB officer Vladimir Putin. The two men collaborated on recruiting West German citizens for the KGB. Warnig, however, has denied this by saying that he met for the first time in 1991, when Putin was the head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office.
Warnig had apparently spied on Dresdner Bank AG in West Germany before he began to work in the bank.
Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in Saint Petersburg, where Putin was now in charge of foreign economic relations. Warnig took part in negotiations. The office was opened in 1991. Warnig became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank ZAO, Dresdner Bank Russian's subsidiary. In 2004-05, the bank advised on the controversial forced sale of Yukos assets.