-Caveat Lector- DAILY TELEGRAPH TUESDAY JULY 03 2001 Roadblocks stop German tax-dodgers FROM ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN GERMANY is deploying police flying squads backed up with helicopters and sniffer dogs and ordering roadside strip-searches after £1 billion was seized in a year from tax-dodgers trying to put their savings in foreign bank accounts. The country's frontiers with Switzerland and Luxembourg are now among the most heavily policed in Europe. Berlin believes that the record figure for seizures will double this year. Werner Eberhardt, the head of Customs, said: "Tax evasion has developed into a mass sport in Germany." It is estimated that £300 billion of undeclared money is hidden from Germany's revenue department, mostly in Switzerland and Luxembourg. Hans Eichel, the Finance Minister, has called it a national scandal and has ordered the patrols to be strengthened this week before the introduction of the euro in six months. "This is the time when people with illegal money are going there to try to get it out and when others are making deposits with large amounts of marks that will soon be out of circulation," he said. The roadside checks involve the arrest of anyone carrying more than £10,000 in any currency. "One lady even tried to throw herself under the wheels of a car when she was stopped with hidden money," said Herr Eberhardt. "She was saved by officials but was still prosecuted." Recently police have been seizing large amounts of cash daily near the Swiss-German border crossing points. In one day 30 consignments of money were found - each one accompanied by a tall story about its origin. "I won it in the lottery," said one man. "I inherited it from an aunt in Canada," said a woman stopped with £500,000. "I won it at a casino," said another. Other smugglers offer the customs officials money. "Take what you want" is an invitation that leads to a further charge of attempting to bribe an official. The money is found in glove compartments, in hollowed-out French baguettes, in the sunroof, under mats and in biscuit tins. People hide it in their underwear, and the police have set up strip-search caravans beside main roads. Police need no concrete reason to stop people. "You see a car and something clicks and you stop it," said one customs official. He added that there were "certain models that send out signals more than others - a Mercedes S-class from Munich or Hamburg is more likely to have black money aboard than an Opel Rekord from Leipzig". Older people are far more likely to be stopped than youngsters, and couples far more likely to be stopped than individual travellers. "A dead cert is an older guy with a much younger woman at his side," said the official. "They combine their trip abroad with a secret adventure." They often hid their money from their wives as well as from the revenue department. Lawyers, car-dealers, butchers, a 72-year-old watchmaker and a 90-year-old widower with £150,000 in cash from a secret account in Zurich are among those who have been stopped. Several hundred people have been fined up to 50 per cent of the amount they were trying to smuggle, several sent to prison for six-month stretches and all have had to pay back interest on their illicit money. Anyone who makes a break for it loses all their money instantly. The race is on to get money away because of large taxes on savings in Germany - and to recover it from foreign banks in advance of European Union rules that come into effect by 2010 by which those banks must notify tax departments of interest on an individual´s account. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
