The Confidential Resource

Is this proof that most tax authorities are crooks?

Vanished tycoon named in tax haven inquiry

 …stolen bank documents that were sold to the tax authorities by a whistleblower thief  who worked at LGT, one of the principality’s biggest banks.

Tax authorities across the world are now using the data to investigate people suspected of hiding their assets in the tax haven.

Germany’s government last week bought another set of data listing the names of 1,850 more people with bank accounts in the principality.

A partner at one the world’s biggest accountancy firms said: “By buying stolen data, tax authorities have encouraged anyone in a bank in Liechtenstein, Monaco or any other tax haven to sell private banking records for cash.

The thief, Heinrich Kieber, according to Forbes, financed a real estate deal in Spain during 1996 with “uncovered checks”. He was not charged and did not have a criminal record when he joined the bank in Liechtenstein. However, the consequences of his Spanish real estate deal followed him to Liechtenstein. In 2001, he was fined 600,000 Swiss francs ($552,000) for fraud by the Liechtenstein judicial system. To get out of this, he tried to blackmail the authorities with the stolen data. When that didn’t work-out to his satisfaction he sold the data to Germany.

I wonder if this thief and extortionist is paying taxes on his $7.5 million blood money from under his rock or wherever he is hiding. On the other hand, I am certain that the public officials who were complicit in this crime kept their jobs or were promoted.