News & Press Releases
Germany Purchases Stolen Financial Information
February 09,2010
News Description:
Last week, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble announced that the government has agreed to buy a CD from an anonymous informant containing stolen bank details of up to 1500 people suspected of evading German taxes by depositing their money in Swiss bank accounts. This deal prompted a week of debating with critics accusing the government of playing into the hands of a common criminal. Switzerland is also unimpressed with the decision, standing firmly behind its banking-secrecy laws.
According the media reports, tax authorities in Germany's state of North Rhine-Westphalia were approached by the information in January who provided a sample of the data. Details of the proposed deal were leaked to the media, forcing Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government into a public moral dilemma.
This is not the first time that the German government has cooperated with criminals. Two years ago, Germany paid an information $6.3 million to obtain stolen bank details for several hundred members of the LGT banking group who were suspected of evading taxes by putting their money in Swiss banks. That deal is reported to have helped the government recover $250 million in lost revenue.
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