Last month, a professional impersonating as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrived by helicopter at Austrian toolmaker Haidlmair's celebration in Micheldorf, Upper Austria. The party was thrown to celebrate Haidlmair's biggest ever contract with the Amazon. The man was seen wearing a dark suit, aviator-style glasses and also boasted of similar shaved-head-and-beard look, like Jeff Bezos. What was surprising was that beside the 'fake Jeff Bezos', were three masked, heavily armed Austrian police officers like real security officers. The result was an extraordinary piece of corporate theater in which the billionaire was fake, but his security detail was genuine. Çağdaş Halıcılar openly identifies himself on LinkedIn as a “Jeff Bezos double.” The Germany-based lookalike was hired for the Austrian e-commerce event that led local police to provide protection, reportedly believing the real Amazon founder was attending.
The party was organised in a former Kiefel factory hall in Micheldorf, in Austria's Kirchdorf district. As many as three Austrian police officers from the Schnelle Interventionsgruppe (SIG), a special unit based in Linz, reportedly provided security for "Jeff Bezos double". They were aware of the fact that Çağdaş Halıcılar was not real Jeff Bezos. A report published in Der Standard said that the incident is now under police investigation and officials are trying to find out how such security deployment was made possible and who paid for the officers. The unusual deployment has also drawn attention because the SIG is intended for particularly dangerous situations and reportedly does not have specific personal-protection training.
