The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has made headlines by buying data on Swiss bank accounts in a crackdown on German tax evaders. But now they have found evidence that Swiss bank UBS may have helped Germans shift their assets to Singapore before a tax treaty between Germany and Switzerland goes into effect next year.

...German investigators who recently purchased data on UBS bank clients have come into possession of documents that show how Swiss banks allegedly help clients transfer their assets to Southeast Asia to evade taxes, according to the Friday edition of the Financial Times Deutschland. "For the first time, we have a paper trail to Singapore," a source close to the North Rhine-Westphalian state Finance Ministry told the newspaper. North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, has led the way in buying Swiss bank customer data in a bid to catch German tax cheats.

The UBS material is apparently so revealing that the investigation into the bank has now become the priority, a source told the FTD, which said that German tax evaders, the original target, were now being regarded merely as "bycatch." The investigators are said to have obtained video material which show "senior (UBS) employees" giving instructions on how German clients can invest their money with the bank in a "tax-optimized" manner -- in other words, keeping it concealed from the tax office.

Said tax agreement increasingly looks like a lifebelt thrown to tax evaders. The agreement, which is currently blocked by the upper house of the federal parliament, was to end a wave of purchases of stolen Swiss bank data by German tax authorities, which the Social Democrat-Greens-led state of NRW violated. Just the day before, there was a concerted attack of CDU and FDP leaders against the NRW government, using harsh words...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}