- Walter Wolf
Walter Wolf (born 5 October 1939) is a Canadian oil-drilling equipment supplier who in the early 1970s made a fortune from the
North Sea oil business and decided to join the world ofFormula One (F1) motor racing.Wolf was born in
Graz ,Austria . His mother was a Slovene fromLower Styria , while his father was an Austrian. After the "Anschluss ", the family moved to theKingdom of Yugoslavia . Wolf spent his childhood inMaribor , Slovenia. After his father returned from aSoviet military international camp in 1951, the family moved toWuppertal inWest Germany . In 1958, they moved to Canada.In Canada, Wolf became a renowned businessman. At first his funds helped prop up
Frank Williams ' fledgling F1 team before Williams left in 1977 to form the "Williams Grand Prix Engineering" (laterWilliamsF1 ) team. Wolf's team continued asWalter Wolf Racing and before being wound up in 1979 managed to win three F1 Grands Prix.Walter Wolf was inducted into the
Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 1998.In 2008, he was involved in the so-called
Patria affair , a corruption scandal involving the Finnish company Patria. The Finnish broadcasting companyYLE 's investigative program MOT made claims that he was a mediator in the paying of bribes to Slovenian government officials, including prime ministerJanez Janša . Both Wolf and Janša rejected all accusations as being untrue. [http://www.rtvslo.si/modload.php?&c_mod=rnews&op=sections&func=read&c_menu=1&c_id=181809] Finnish police issued an arrest warrant against him, but so far he has not been apprehended.References
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