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After Wirecard Scandal, Germany Plans More Data Exchanges Between FIU, Police and Tax Authorities

By Gabriel Vedrenne

Germany's financial intelligence unit may soon be given the keys to confidential information kept by tax authorities, the country's finance minister said, but in return must provide law enforcement broader access to its own data to avoid any further operational delays. In a four-hour meeting with German lawmakers last week, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz faced an avalanche of questions about Wirecard, the Munich-based payments processor that filed for insolvency in June amid the fallout of a nearly €2 billion accounting fraud, and responded by pitching the government's plan to prevent a crime of such magnitude from being repeated. The plan...

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