Bank worker jailed for Swiss data leak
A bank worker who tried to clear his tax debts by leaking information about clients to the German tax authorities has been sentenced to three years in prison.
German Lutz Otte worked as a contractor for Swiss private bank Julius Bär when he gathered information about the bank's wealthy clients, including their names, addresses and account numbers, between October and December 2011.
He reached an agreement with a Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court on Thursday which jailed him for data theft. The 54-year-old computer technician agreed to plead in return for the three-year sentence, half of which was suspended.
Otte had compiled the list of German clients with assets of more than 100,000 euros, Swiss francs, British pounds or dollars, and passed it on to a retired German tax inspector.
In exchange, he had been set to receive €1.1 million, although he had
only received part of that amount by the time he was caught.
He told the court he had planned to use part of his compensation to pay off
his own back-tax debt to German authorities.
Otte began working as a contractor for the bank in 2005. Julius Bär declined to comment on the verdict.
AFP/tsb
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German Lutz Otte worked as a contractor for Swiss private bank Julius Bär when he gathered information about the bank's wealthy clients, including their names, addresses and account numbers, between October and December 2011.
He reached an agreement with a Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court on Thursday which jailed him for data theft. The 54-year-old computer technician agreed to plead in return for the three-year sentence, half of which was suspended.
Otte had compiled the list of German clients with assets of more than 100,000 euros, Swiss francs, British pounds or dollars, and passed it on to a retired German tax inspector.
In exchange, he had been set to receive €1.1 million, although he had
only received part of that amount by the time he was caught.
He told the court he had planned to use part of his compensation to pay off
his own back-tax debt to German authorities.
Otte began working as a contractor for the bank in 2005. Julius Bär declined to comment on the verdict.
AFP/tsb
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