A German state government has purchased a large dataset containing information on offshore holdings linked to German citizens as part of a widening probe into large-scale tax evasion, according to officials.
The finance ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, said the data, acquired from an informant, points to suspected tax offences “on a large scale” involving the creation of shell companies abroad.
The state did not disclose how much it paid for the material said to exceed one terabyte.
The federal government and other German state goverments have been notified, as the records include cases across the country as well as abroad.
Authorities have not yet determined how much money may have been moved into offshore structures.
The information was obtained by the state’s financial crime unit and reportedly contains client records from service providers based in the United Arab Emirates, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Panama, Singapore and Cyprus.
North Rhine-Westphalia has stepped up efforts to crack down on financial fraud. A taskforce launched by the state drew attention earlier this year for investigating social media influencers suspected of under-reporting income.
Tax investigators are now looking into the newly obtained offshore files. The state’s finance minister, Marcus Optendrenk, told dpa the data could “shed light on sophisticated methods used to shift assets to offshore tax havens.”
