Data Thief

Heinrich Kieber

Author: Sebastian Frommelt, Sigvard Wohlwend

Length: 52'

It was the worst catastrophe imaginable for the discreet Liechtenstein trustees and their international clientele: Heinrich Kieber, an employee of the Princely trust company LGT, illegally copied the firm's entire client database and sold the stolen data to the German intelligence agency BND, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, and the Australian Taxation Office, and other authorities. In return he was paid several million Euro by the Germans, as well as a new identity, new passports, and a safe haven by other grateful governments. For the finance ministers of the world, Heinrich Kieber is a hero – for Liechtensteiners, a traitor. But who is Heinrich Kieber really? His friends and acquaintances thought Heinrich was just an eccentric windbag – which turned out to be a fatal misjudgement. Since his earliest childhood, Heinrich led an eventful double life: the outsider from a children's home, his youth as a runaway, his cons in Germany and the frauds in New Zealand and Australia, his kidnapping in Argentina, his crimes in Spain. Thanks to intensive research over a year and a half, the filmmakers were able to put together a conclusive picture of the man who cracked bank secrecy in Liechtenstein and Switzerland and to provide an equally answer as to why Kieber did what he did. Greed wasn't the driving force, but neither were his motives noble.

year of production: 2010