Prosecutors from Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein found 12 shell companies whose Liechtenstein bank accounts Haider had access to, Profil magazine reported. The accounts currently still have 5 million euros of deposits, it said. The money was found in an investigation by Austrian and German authorities into the near-collapse of Austrian bank Hypo Group Alpe Adria, once owned by the Austrian region of Carinthia, which Haider governed until he died in a car crash in 2008. Haider’s Carinthia and a group of mainly German and Austrian investors sold a majority stake in Hypo to Germany’s BayernLB in 2007 in a deal that ultimately proved disastrous. Hypo had to be nationalised last year to prevent a collapse. Prosecutors are investigating whether former managers, shareholders and business partners of Hypo lined their pockets at the expense of both Hypo and BayernLB. Claudia Haider, the far-right politician’s widow, denied any knowledge of the funds, adding “Nothing like that was described in the estate.”
The Telegraph
