Rand alPaul posted:

This poor comrade is about to fall for the capitalist honeypot.

quote:

DIE ZEIT: Mr Otte, how did you get the idea to turn tax evaders in to the German treasury?

Lutz Otte: In my case it all began on the golf course. I've been golfing with some friends for many years, we meet at tournaments in Germany and Switzerland. One of those friends was a retired tax fraud investigator.

ZEIT: You lived in Switzerland at that time.

Otte: Yes. Back then, I worked for UBS in the IT department. This retired investigator then asked me whether I had the opportunity to get my hands on the data.

ZEIT: When did this happen?

Otte: In 2007.

ZEIT: What did you say?

Otte: I said: „Forget it!“. UBS is one of the world's largest banks, their technology is perfectly up-to-date. Everything's protected. But then UBS fired lots of people during the recession, including me. I got another job at the Julius Bär bank afterwards, and there I quickly realised that they were working with very old software. They had problems with IT security which I even mentioned when talking to the management, but they ignored me. Then, in 2011, I met the investigator again at a golfing tournament in Switzerland, and he asked me: „Aren't you working at Julius Bär now? How about now?“

ZEIT: What was your reaction?

Otte: I said: Theoretically yes, but where should I begin? Then he explained everything to me, and I thought it to be quite exciting.

ZEIT: Did you already talk about money back then?

Otte: At once.

ZEIT: Did he start the negotiations or did you?

Otte: He said that there would be negotiations about the final sum, but on average I could expect to be paid 10-12,000€ per relevant data set, which came out as quite a tidy sum in my head.

ZEIT: What was your estimate?

Otte: I didn't know how many records I would be able to obtain, of course. But I thought that three to four million Euros should be possible for me – you could easily live well for 20 years on that.

ZEIT: Did your contact demand a percentage as well?

Otte: He said: When I am to be the middleman, I want to get something out of it, too.

ZEIT: What did you say to that?

Otte: I work in the financial sector, to me that's perfectly normal. When you're the middleman to a deal, you can expect a commission.

ZEIT: So all of that was merely a business deal to you?

Otte: I never saw it differently. It was a risky deal, we had settled on the price. It didn't work perfectly well...

ZEIT: …you were arrested and spent some time in prison...

Otte: ...but that didn't change anything. That's why I don't claim to be a whistleblower or anything.

ZEIT: What happened next?

Otte: First, my business partners wanted to see how interesting my data was. They wanted to know whether the adresses were up to date and how much money had been hidden from them. I sent them 20 data sets: names, account numbers, date of the account opening, account balance, address of the customer.

ZEIT: German names?

Otte: Names from all over Germany. After four weeks I was contacted again, they were quite pleased. Another test: Now I received 100 account numbers, and was supposed to find out the initials of the holders' names. I did that as well, and after three weeks they told me: Everything's in order, we want all of it. And then it began.

ZEIT: You hadn't received any payment until then?

Otte: No, they had insisted on that.

ZEIT: You worked exclusively with your contact in Berlin?

Otte: Yes. In my case the regional tax office in Münster was responsible, but I never had any contact with them, not a single word.

ZEIT: How did you and your contact communicate?

Otte: By phone.

ZEIT: Weren't you afraid of your calls being intercepted?

Otte: No. You can buy a mobile for five Euro that is activated and registered under whatever name. I did just that and went across the German border as well for all our phonecalls, so that I would be calling within the German network.

ZEIT: How many data sets did you provide?

Otte: All in all I had about 18,000 German adresses. But it turned out that the authorities weren't interested in most of them. They told me that they didn't intend to prosecute anyone with less than 100,000€ in the account, as it would have been too much effort.

ZEIT: How many sets remained?

Otte: About 2,700 altogether.

ZEIT: Comprising how much money?

Otte: A substantial sum, almost two and a half billion Euros.

ZEIT: And after that?

Otte: We started haggling like on a bazaar.

ZEIT: Who made the first offer?

Otte: I demanded three million.

ZEIT: And what did the tax office reply?

Otte: They offered me 800,000 instead. Eventually we compromised on 1.1 million Euros.

ZEIT: That's not exactly in the middle.

Otte: That's right. The problem was that I already had stolen the data and could be jailed for that. Not exactly the ideal position to negotiate from.

ZEIT: How did you steal the data?

Otte: I simply downloaded it off one of the mainframe computers which I used to work on. You could simply copy the data onto your PC and open it in Excel. I then disassembled the files in many smaller ones and saved them as image files for camouflage. I sent those „pictures“ then to my private e-mail account.

ZEIT: Didn't this come off as suspicious to your colleagues?

Otte: No, I used to constantly send private pictures as mails.

ZEIT: How many mails did you send?

Otte: Eight or nine, not only with data from those 2,700 Germans, but also from 1,700 Brits, about 2,000 Frenchmen, 2,500 Italians, 700 Dutch, 200 Greeks, a couple hundred Austrians and also a couple hundred Spaniards.

ZEIT: Did you send those as well?

Otte: No. German authorities are only interested in Germans.

ZEIT: Did you hope to reach a deal with other countries as well?

Otte: Well, yes, that was the idea. I thought that after the Germans didn't pay as well as I had liked, I should try to compensate by dealing with other countries. It was quite interesting to look at the various data sets, by the way. The 200 Greek account holders had about as much money in their accounts as 2,700 Germans, for example.

ZEIT: Do you still have the data?

Otte: An exciting question which I won't answer.

ZEIT: What did you do then with the data? Burn it onto a CD?

Otte: Many people think that, but no. I simply transferred the files onto a SIM card.

ZEIT: How did this card reach your contact?

Otte: I mailed it to him. I sent him the first 200 adresses, and soon after that I received my first payment. I went to Berlin and got 200,000€.

ZEIT: Cash?

Otte: Of course, I had insisted on that from the very beginning.

ZEIT: What did the authorities say?

Otte: They said that it wasn't possible. I simply replied: No cash, no deal. It turned out to be not a problem at all after that.

ZEIT: How did the handover go down?

Otte: The tax office had transferred the money on my contact's account in Berlin, and he withdrew it all in cash. He had opened up an entirely new account for that, and the bank had been assured by the tax office that everything was in order. He then stuffed the money into a briefcase and gave it to me in a hotel room in the outskirts of Berlin. He had already deducted his commission.

ZEIT: How much did he get?

Otte: 15 percent.

ZEIT: Did you count the money?

Otte: Absolutely, why should I trust anybody in this?

ZEIT: And this was the procedure for the second transaction as well?

Otte: Yes. That time we met near to the main station. He gave me the remaining 900,000€, minus the taxes which the tax office had already kept for itself. The second briefcase was quite a bit larger.

ZEIT: You were taxed on that money?

Otte: Of course.

ZEIT: And you also had to pay your contact after being taxed?

Otte: Yes.

ZEIT: What did you do with all that money?

Otte: I stashed it in a safe place.

ZEIT: What is a safe place?

Otte: There are places which aren't controlled either by banks or the authorities.

ZEIT: Deposit boxes?

Otte: Exactly. Not at banks or train stations. There are companies offering exactly what I needed, but they don't advertise themselves. You have to know the right people.

ZEIT: How do you get to know them?

Otte: Simply by meeting a lot of people. I always did, and I knew that such companies exist.

ZEIT: Did you hide the money in Berlin?

Otte: No, the deposit box was in Göttingen.

ZEIT: How does it feel, going to Göttingen with a briefcase stuffed with money?

Otte: You feel a bit like Scrooge McDuck. The 50€ bills are especially impressive, because they are so large. Not too bad.

ZEIT: Didn't you get nervous? You just had committed a crime, after all.

Otte: I knew that, but at the time this wasn't too much of a concern. I simply tried to plan my move out of Switzerland without attracting attention.

ZEIT: Did you ever wonder whether you were doing the right thing?

Otte: There was no Right or Wrong. I didn't see it that way, to me it was a business deal, like many others before. I knew the risks.

ZEIT: So you returned to Switzerland.

Otte: Yes, with 150,000€ in cash.

ZEIT: And simply resumed your work?

Otte: Yes.

ZEIT: Why?

Otte: Well, the problem was: How should I tell my wife where all this money came from?

ZEIT: She didn't know?

Otte: She knew nothing, I wanted to keep her out of all that. I told her that I had won the money while gambling online. We wanted to go to Germany, but I was too slow in actually acting on that. I simply went to work every day, until it happened.

ZEIT: They rang at your doorbell and arrested you?

Otte: No, they arrested me during work, not too long after I had sold the data. The German tax investigators had already used my data to start prosecuting lots of people, who in turn complained at Julius Bär – they had invested their money there in order to evade the German authorities, after all. The bank didn't need long to find out that I must have been the informant. I was called into the manager's office where six police officers already awaited me.

ZEIT. How did they remove you from the premises?

Otte: Very discreetly, through a backdoor. They went to my house next, trying to find the backup data. They didn't find it, though.

ZEIT: Where did you hide it?

Otte: I had taped it to the underside of a drawer in my wardrobe.

ZEIT: That's a pretty boring hiding place.

Otte: Extremely boring. They were searching for CDs like madmen, taking all of my CDs with them. They never found the SIM card.

ZEIT: You were sent to prison next, right?

Otte: The Zürich police prison, a two-man cell where I spent a week. I was questioned over and over again. The most important piece of advice my lawyer gave me was that as the accused I was allowed to lie. Witnesses can't lie, I could. They only had to prove that I had been lying.

ZEIT: Did you lie?

Otte: Of course.

ZEIT: What did the Swiss authorities want to know?

Otte: Where the money was hidden. I told them that I had paid off my tax debts in Germany with it – utterly untrue, but a wonderful explanation. They broke off the search for the money after that.

ZEIT: Did they know about the amount?

Otte: I even claimed that the commission had been 20% instead of 15, to make the remaining sum sound more believable.

ZEIT: So they questioned you and investigated the matter, and finally it came to court?

Otte: I tried to be cooperative and eventually even told them where the backup data was. I was sentenced to 18 months.

ZEIT: You said that in your eyes this was merely a business deal. Do you understand the Swiss position that the country has a business model which is being destroyed by people like you?

Otte: Yes, I understand that very well. It's been a highly successful business model for many years.

ZEIT: Is it justified to break the law in order to reach a good deal?

Otte: This happens every day.

ZEIT: You could justify ordering a hit on someone with that.

Otte: I wouldn't do that. But there are obviously people who offer their services as hitmen and people who take them on on their offers. That's how it works. I worked with banks a lot, and I don't want to deny that morality is important in your private life. It has no place in business, though.

ZEIT: Did the fact that your victims had broken the law themselves make it easier for you?

Otte: Yes. The German state probably has earned several hundred million Euros in tax money due to my data. I wouldn't have been able to commit that particular crime when everybody would have followed the law and payed his taxes. Therefore, what I did wasn't a crime to Germans, even though it was to the Swiss. For me it was a deal.

ZEIT: You wouldn't have done it without payment?

Otte: No, and that is why I can't claim to be a hero.

ZEIT: Do your friends still play golf?

Otte: I think so, but not with me.

ZEIT: Because they don't want you or you don't want them?

Otte: I cut all ties with this episode of my life.

ZEIT: Where do you live now?

Otte: In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

ZEIT: Did you pick up the remaining money?

Otte: Money never vanishes, it's just that sometimes another person has it.

ZEIT: So you did pick it up?

Otte: As I said: Money never vanishes.

ZEIT: Your lawyer advised you to lie during interrogations. Did you lie during that interview as well?

Otte: No. But do you know the princible of partial truth? You tell as much of the truth as you need and omit the rest.

klen dool posted:

They are scum because they lied to a liar, who represented an organisation who probably stole the land? Or, does this post not contain the reason they are scum?

Trench_Rat posted:

friendly reminder that the third way between capitalism and communism is absolute monarchy

Mulva posted:

That's crazy, I can't imagine a head of state being allowed to fly commercial.

Honj Steak posted:

They found an abandoned truck with dozens of corpses in it in Austria, most likely refugees.

Eschers Basement posted:

If the purpose of this article is to make me proud of America's immigrant tradition and hate Donald Trump even more, mission accomplished.

Noosphere posted:

Ajon posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRBsU5PfL8c

tonyisback.com posted:

Unfortunately my Twitter and Facebook accounts have been taken down by Kellogg's. I don't understand why. You can still like and share this site from the bottom of the page.
— Tony the Tiger

illumn8d posted:

NRA Dick Pics

gnarlyhotep posted:

lol everybody else makes up for my lack of picture

hahahaha

quote:

As this book often talks about the Great Lama or high priest of the Tartars, we deem it necessary to introduce him not only in short, but also describe him in more detail. He is the highest priest of the religion in the Kingdom of Barantola.

This kingdom is ruled by two kings. The first, who is called "Deva", concerns himself with the state and with all matters, as happen in the kingdom, that law and order are maintained. The other king lives in quiet, and free from all earthly troubles, and he is venerated as a deity not only by the inhabitants thereof, but also by other Tartar kings, who are subject to him in matters of religion. They call him the living and true God or "Lama Congin", i.e. the eternal and heavenly father, and they willingly undertake pilgrimages in his honour.

He lives in a dark and secluded place in his palace, which is entirely covered with gold, silver and gems and illuminated by many lamps. There he sits elevated on a cushion filled with down feathers and has his feet lying on beautiful carpets in front of him. The foreigners deeply bow in front of him as a sign of their deep respect and awe, and are not allowed to approach him and kiss his feet without doing so. They call this false god "the great Lama", that is a high priest, and the Lama above all lamas, i.e. a priest above all priests, as they think that all of their religion has its origin in him.

But that his eternity might not end with his life, the common lamas who endlessly sit in his company, serve him, receive his supposedly divine exclamations and carry those to the simple-minded foreign peoples, make a great effort, that they look in the entire kingdom after his death for someone who looks as similar to him as possible. This one they seat in place of the deceased, and they know how to do this with such cunning, that no-one in all the kingdom notices the deception.

They want to tell everyone that the eternal father had risen from the dead for the last seven hundred years, and that from this time on he had always been alive, and should live on forever. They teach this to the barbaric peoples and convince them with satanic guile so that they do not have the slightest doubt in their faith, and so everybody, even the powerful, hold him in such high esteem that they deem themselves lucky to attain the dried filth leaving his body and put it in a golden box which they carry at their necks, and they use its content as medicine for a great variety of diseases.

Honj Steak posted:

The Chivalric Order of Saint John provides ambulances in Germany.

quote:

The trial of a Turkish man accused of insulting the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by comparing him to Gollum has been adjourned so that a group of experts can study JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings character, Turkish media has reported.

Bilgin Çiftçi was fired from his job as a civil servant in October after sharing images comparing Erdoğan’s facial expressions to those of Gollum.

According to a report in the daily newspaper Today’s Zaman, a court in Aydın has adjourned Çiftçi’s trial as the chief judge had not seen the Lord of the Rings films. The court-appointed experts have reportedly been asked to determine whether the comparison is indeed an insult.

Erdoğan’s reign has been characterised by intense pressure on the media and the prosecution of many local journalists. They have decried what they say is the worst crackdown on the press in the republic’s history, saying the Turkish president has little tolerance for mockery or dissent.

Gollum is known for his grotesque appearance, his split personality, eating raw fish and disliking rabbit stew and potatoes, but also for assisting the hobbits Frodo and Sam in their quest to reach Mount Doom to destroy the Ring of Power, thereby defeating the evil Lord Sauron and ushering in an era of peace in the fictional world of Middle Earth.

Some social media users have accused Erdoğan of being “precious” – a favourite word of Gollum – over any mockery. Others pointed out that a more apt comparison would be to compare Erdoğan to Denethor or Saruman, two tragic characters in JRR Tolkein’s trilogy who are undermined by their own ambitions.

Reynold posted:

What the gently caress is a "national discussion"? How is that different from people voting for politicians that support their side of the issue and/or contributing to groups lobbying on their behalf? Because that's something that's already being done. Mama and papa government don't need to sit us all down in the national living room and give us a stern lecture, goddamn.

Baloogan posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvSCGm4crhc

Volcott posted:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/251870/

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted: