There is value in good information especially if the payback is 233 times the original investment. When a disgruntled employee of a Liechtenstein bank stole the bank’s customer data, the German Finance Ministry moved quickly by rewarding the thief with a payment of Euro 6 million to get its hands on the data. According to the latest estimates by the German Finance Ministry the stolen bank data yielded Euro 1.4 billion in back-taxes and fines. The German Finance Ministry also benefited from stolen data from Swiss banks raising the total yield from the Lichtenstein and Swiss data heists to Euro 2 billion.
The moral of the story is: First: If you intend to steel data for your business, if discovered, you are likely to go to jail. Apparently same does not apply for Governments. Second: Don’t hide your investments in foreign banks. The memory stick has rendered bank secrecy inoperable. Third: The Liechtenstein and Swiss banks however see it differently: They call it a modern form of bank robbery.
