Liechtenstein Issues Warrant For Tax Informant

FRANKFURT — Liechtenstein has issued an international arrest warrant for a man suspected of selling stolen banking data to German authorities that formed the basis of a vast tax evasion scandal.

Heinrich Kieber is sought.

In a notice posted on the police Web site Tuesday, the authorities in Liechtenstein said they were seeking Heinrich Kieber, a 42-year-old former bank employee, whom they suspect of acquiring confidential information on customers of a Liechtenstein bank and selling it to foreign authorities.

The announcement includes a photograph of a man identified by the police as Mr. Kieber. It shows a middle-age white man with a fringe of thinning hair, wearing glasses with blue frames.

The warrant, citing news media reports, said that Mr. Kieber might have been supplied with a new identity and travel documents by the German intelligence service.

Germany confirmed it had paid an informant more than 4 million euros ($6.2 million) for a CD-ROM with banking records.

Liechtenstein has harshly protested Germany’s tactics, and the arrest warrant may deepen the rift between the countries.

Officials of Liechtenstein, a postage-stamp Alpine principality, have defended its tradition of banking secrecy, while German officials complain that it has built a lucrative business offering wealthy Germans a way to avoid paying taxes at home.

The investigation, which initially involved only Germans, has spread to include people from the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Mr. Kieber’s whereabouts are not known, though he is thought to be living in Australia, according to newspaper reports. The German newsmagazine Focus reported last week that Mr. Kieber told the German intelligence service, the BND, that he worried that his life was in danger.

The Liechtenstein police requested information on Mr. Kieber’s whereabouts. Liechtenstein also said it would demand that he be extradited if he were arrested outside the principality.

Officials in Liechtenstein say Mr. Kieber worked for a subsidiary of LGT, a bank owned by the principality’s royal family. It specialized in creating foundations that allow foreigners to transfer assets to Liechtenstein without reporting capital gains to their own tax authorities.

The CD-ROM purchased by Germany has information on 1,400 clients, 600 of whom are German, according to officials. More than 150 people have turned themselves in after the highly visible arrest last month of the chief executive of the German postal service, Klaus Zumwinkel.

In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service is investigating more than 100 American taxpayers on suspicion that they may have used Liechtenstein as a tax haven. Last year, the I.R.S. said, an informant, whom it did not identify, approached the agency with information about clients of LGT.

Liechtenstein is under pressure from many sides, notably the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, to make its banks more transparent so they are not used as tax havens.

But its dispute with Germany has been the most rancorous, even spilling into the cultural realm.

Crown Prince Alois of Liechtenstein recently canceled a loan of art from his family’s collection to a museum in Munich.

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