Overview
- North Rhine-Westphalia’s anti-financial crime authority purchased the data carrier from a whistleblower to support tax investigations.
- The trove exceeds one terabyte and includes client records from service providers based in the UAE, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Panama, Singapore and Cyprus.
- The Düsseldorf finance ministry says the material points to large-scale tax evasion through the creation of foreign companies.
- The federal government and all other German states were alerted because potential cases extend across Germany and abroad.
- Officials have not revealed the informant’s compensation or the sums moved, and Finance Minister Marcus Optendrenk says the data could reveal how assets were shifted, following earlier NRW taskforce work on influencers.