A German YouTuber apologizes after facing allegations of sending faulty masks to refugees

• YouTuber Fynn Kliemann apologized after he was accused of sending faulty masks to refugees.
• He was also accused of having masks made in Bangladesh and advertising them as "produced in Europe."

A German YouTuber has apologized to his friends, followers, and business partners after facing allegations he sent faulty masks to refugee organizations and misled buyers about where they were manufactured.

An investigation aired May 5 on the German late night show "ZDF Magazin Royale" that focused on Kliemann and German textile company Global Tactics. The host, satirist Jan Böhmermann, claimed in the segment that Kliemann and his business partner Tom Illbruck sold masks through Global Tactics that were made in Bangladesh, but were all labeled and advertized as being "produced in Europe" under "fair" conditions.

Böhmermann, whose show has drawn comparisons to comedian John Oliver's mix of satire and investigation, also claimed that the masks Global Tactics donated to refugee organizations in Greece and Bosnia turned out to be "unusable."

Fynn Kliemann, who has 585,000 YouTube subscribers and is known for posting vlogs about his creative projects, said he took the allegations "very seriously" in an Instagram video response posted on Saturday.

In Kliemann's response video, he apologized to fans but also denied some of the allegations or shifted blame.

"I must apologize for some and must urgently correct others because the fraud allegations are simply not true," Kliemann said in his video, which Insider translated to English. "Yes, Global Tactics has also made masks in Bangladesh. No, I have never sold or advertised these masks. I only offered masks that came 100% from Portugal and Serbia."

He did not directly address whether any of the masks donated to refugees were ultimately faulty, but said that the manufacturer had told him that the masks "were not defective or had any poor protection."

"I was told they would simply be a little larger than the default and that they would be donated by Global Tactics and Tech Solutions," Kliemann said.

Kliemann's video also went into details about the specifics of emails sent between his company and buyers of the masks. He claimed he had been "partly copied" into emails about the details of where the masks were made, but had dropped the ball due to the level of demand.

Kliemann claimed to be receiving hundreds of emails a day about the masks and that this meant he could "no longer keep track of the process."

"But this must never happen and so I must take — even if I was neither producer or a buyer — responsibility," he said.

In the investigation, Böhmermann claimed making masks in Asia increased Global Tactics' profit margin — costing just 45 cents to make per mask. Customers paid 98 cents per mask in a pack of 100 and €2.20 if bought in packs of ten, according to an interview Kliemann and Illbruck gave to Business Insider Germany in April 2020.

At the end of Kliemann's response video, he apologized and said he felt "ashamed." Kliemann added he should have done more research and that "every person deserves the same protection"

"I simply lost sight of my moral compass," he said, "and would like to apologize for the non-transparent communication."

Insider has reached out to Kliemann and Global Tactics for further comment.