Word: german
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Swiss history, took place at 4:30 on the afternoon of February 10, while 15 visitors strolled around three floors of the vine-covered villa, which houses one of the world's most impressive private collections of European art. The masked thieves, including one who witnesses said spoke German with a Slavic accent, ordered the museum staff at gunpoint to lie down on the floor. They then stripped the wall of the downstairs salon of four paintings, estimated at $160 million. The heist took less than three minutes and nobody was hurt...
...began last week with the arrest of a leading German executive on suspicion of tax evasion. Now Germany is enthralled by a tale of unbridled greed that offers as much drama as any Hollywood thriller could - but with possibly far greater political consequences. Prosecutors have said that further probes are under way into the tax affairs of hundreds of individuals suspected of funneling millions of euros into anonymous bank accounts in Liechtenstein under the radar of German tax authorities. The targets are thought to include some of Germany's wealthiest and most prominent citizens...
...probe began almost by accident. During an investigation into organized crime, agents of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, became acquainted with an employee of a bank in Liechtenstein, a tiny principality between Austria and Switzerland with very secretive banking laws. The agents turned their contact over to German tax authorities. With the approval of the German government, tax investigators paid the contact more than $7 million (5 million euros) and provided him with a new identity in exchange for a CD detailing the Liechtenstein bank accounts of hundreds of German citizens...
...first suspect ensnared by the German taxman was Klaus Zumwinkel, the CEO of Deutsche Post WorldNet, the former German postal monopoly, which now owns DHL and has become a global logistics giant. He is suspected of evading taxes totaling some $1.47 million (1 million euros) by transferring funds to a bank in Liechtenstein. Police detained Zumwinkel for questioning last week and carted trunkloads of documents from his home and office. Under intense political pressure, Zumwinkel resigned from his job at Deutsche Post, which is still partially state-owned. Zumwinkel was released after questioning, and the investigation continues...
...Many voters are angry that ordinary workers have to carry the burden of Germany's economic reforms while executives give themselves huge pay increases, and they have been flocking to an opposition party called the Left, an amalgam of the former East Germany's ruling communist party and West German leftists. Though long established in the East, the Left managed in January to enter state legislatures in the large western states of Hesse and Lower Saxony...