BERLIN (AP) - A German lawyer has been arrested for suspected money laundering in connection with the alleged blackmailing of a Liechtenstein bank, prosecutors said Saturday.
The lawyer, identified only as Thomas L., 45, was arrested in Rostock on Friday following court testimony from one of four suspects charged with blackmailing Liechtensteinische Landesbank AG, or LLB, the prosecutors' office in the altic Sea port city said in a statement.
LLB has said it was the victim of blackmail between 2003 and 2007 in a case unrelated to a high-profile tax-evasion investigation involving Germans dodging taxes through accounts with the tiny Alpine principality.
Prosecutors have said the four men already on trial obtained more than 2,000 bank statements containing clients' names, addresses and account balances from an unidentified LLB employee.
They used the information to contact individuals and demand a percentage of their savings in exchange for not handing the information to German financial authorities, but failed to collect any money, prosecutors have said.
They say some of the defendants demanded that LLB pay them ¤13 million (US$20 million) to return the statements. They say LLB paid about ¤9 million (US$13.9 million) in two installments in 2005 and 2007.
On Friday, prosecutors said, one of the defendants testified that the lawyer had known from the beginning about his «business» with LLB. That prompted his arrest.
Prosecutors accused the lawyer of covering up the source of the money paid over by LLB. They said that in 2007 he tried to place ¤1.3 million (US$2 million) in an account set up by the mother of one of the alleged blackmailers and then to transfer it to Thailand _ a plan that was thwarted by a bank in Rostock.
The prosecutors' statement said a judge on Saturday ordered the lawyer held in custody pending charges.
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