German state buys USB said to hold evidence of €600m in tax avoidance
Tax authorities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia have purchased a USB stick reported to hold evidence of tax avoidance and illegal deals worth more than €600m (£427m).
Investigators are believed to have paid more than €5m for the data, the highest amount handed over for such information, according to Der Spiegel.
The news magazine said the data covers trade volume of €70bn and holds information pertaining to hidden money, as well as details of fake business transactions – deals that led to an unjustified refund of capital gains tax to certain companies.
The seller is a former high-ranking tax expert with an in-depth knowledge of tax secrets in the German and European financial industries, and is reported to have negotiated with tax authorities for more than a year over the information, according to the German financial daily Handelsblatt.
Ingrid Herden, a spokeswoman for North Rhine-Westphalia’s finance ministry, told the Guardian she was unable to confirm how much the authorities had paid for the data.
She added: “We always receive a lot of offers for data – that’s part of our work – and when they are valuable, then we buy them. We only buy data that is important for us, so that there is fair taxation and also to get those names of people that are against it.”
The news came as the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that investigators in North Rhine-Westphalia have bought a second data cache with information on 55,000 customers from one bank. They are suspected of hiding money abroad from tax authorities.
It is not the first time German authorities have paid out to access information. In recent years, investigators spent millions of euros on stolen banking data to obtain information on tax evaders. In the past, it has led to officials in Switzerland accusing German investigators of breaking Swiss laws on banking secrecy.
German authorities have recovered between €4bn and €5bn through tax evasion investigations. North Rhine-Westphalia has claimed more than €2bn in tax payments and bank penalties, according to Der Spiegel. Investigations have also resulted in about 120,000 Germans coming forward to confess to tax evasion in an attempt to avoid prison sentences.
High-profile cases have included that of the former German international football player and president of Bayern Munich, Uli Hoeness, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for tax evasion in 2014.
Hoeness, who was in the West Germany team that won the World Cup in 1974, admitted to hiding large profits he had made on the stock market in a Swiss bank account.
Investigations into German domestic and international banks and their customers as a result of the newly acquired data are already under way, with the first searches expected to take place in the coming week.
