four men on trial for attempting to extort money from the Liechtenstein bank LLB by threatening to reveal data on 2,325 suspected tax dodgers

Germany is to put four men on trial next week for attempting to extort money from the Liechtenstein bank LLB by threatening to reveal data on 2,325 suspected tax dodgers.The case is expected to revive questions about the ethics of the German BND intelligence service this year paying 4.2 million euros ($A6.95 million) for another purloined list of customers of a different Liechtenstein bank, the LGT.
Prosecutors in the northern port city of Rostock will need to argue that German authorities buying such a list was legal, but demanding money from Liechtenstein to keep it a secret was a crime
Liechtenstein, a territory between Switzerland and Austria, insists it is not a tax haven, but its cast-iron bank secrecy has attracted rich people from around the world setting up low-tax trusts
Four men are to go on trial on April 11 for extortionately obtaining 9 million euros ($A15.45 million) from the LLB for returning bank statements they obtained in 2005, prosecutors said.The data was allegedly stolen by a bank employee.The quartet is said to still possess data on more than 700 customers of the Liechtensteinische Landesbank (LLB) and have been negotiating via their lawyers for a lower sentence in exchange for its return.The prosecutors declined to comment on the progress in these talks, but stressed that if the data was not returned, the defendants would be deemed to be continuing the extortion, which is said to involve 4 billion euros in hidden funds in the Alpine principality.The indictment said the group sought to extort 4 million euros ($A6.9 million) from Liechtenstein for the return of the last block of data.The leader of the group was arrested last year as he was about to leave the country and take refuge in Thailand.Their lawyers reportedly offered the data to German tax authorities too, but were told that only prosecutors could negotiate over it.