Disgruntled Tech In Liechtenstein Steals Banking Info On Tax Cheats; Turns It In For Rewards

from the good-or-bad? dept

Forget the disgruntled tech holding the city of San Francisco hostage. An even more interesting story of a disgruntled tech is coming out of the tiny European country of Lichtenstein. Apparently (who knew?) Lichtenstein is a favorite destination for money of rich folks looking to avoid taxes. It's banking system is apparently quite secretive... except, of course, in the hands of a disgruntled computer tech. It appears that just such a tech, named Heinrich Kieber walked off with tons of data from Liechtenstein LGT Group, a bank owned by Lichtenstein's ruling family. He then sold that data to a variety of countries to help those countries find and arrest tax cheats. This turned out to be quite lucrative for Kieber. For example, the US offers such "whistle blowers" 30% of whatever tax money they recover. Germany apparently paid him somewhere between $6 million and $7.3 million for the info. The guy's lawyer insists he's a whistleblower -- while those exposed have a different word (or words) they think of when discussing Kieber.

28 Comments | Leave a Comment..