Finance minister in home state of Germany's financial centre commits suicide

[happynewyear]

Source: Reuters

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The finance minister of the regional state of Germany’s financial centre Frankfurt has committed suicide, police and the public prosecutor’s office said in a joint statement on Saturday.

Thomas Schaefer, who had led the finance ministry of Hesse for almost ten years, was found dead next to train tracks near Frankfurt, according to a police investigation.

Police and the public prosecutor’s office gave no information on the motive. They said they reached the conclusion he had committed suicide due to “extensive crime scene work, the questioning of numerous witnesses, the situation on site and the technical and forensic evaluations and investigations.”

Schaefer, 54, had been widely expected to succeed Hesse’s prime minister, Volker Bouffier, if Bouffier decided not to stand for re-election in 2023.

Read more: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-politics-suicide/finance-minister-in-home-state-of-germanys-financial-centre-commits-suicide-idUKKBN21F0XY

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[madeup64]

1. Sad

Condolences to his family and friends. I imagine there will be many whose mental health disease will make this situation much harder, especially since medical providers will be focused on dealing with the Coronavirus issues.

Oh a side note I'm sure the conspiracies are already ramping up. I can see it now. "He was set to uncover the Deep State secrets that led to Germany's limited cases while other European countries cases skyrocketed. The truth, Germany has the vaccine and George Soros is keeping it from Trump and his bid to save Americans because Soros only wants to hurt Trump's re-election campaign even if it means killing Americans."

[cstanleytech]

3. Don't forget he was involved in Pizzagate as well as Benghazi.

[ancianita]

2. From 2-3 years ago... it must have become exhausting and dangerous.

The German government stepped up its efforts to tackle organized crime and tax evasion by buying the so-called Panama Papers, a trove of documents stolen from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca implicating individuals stashing their wealth in offshore tax havens.
Germany's Federal Criminal Police Agency (BKA) spent 5 million euros ($5.7 million) to purchase the Panama Papers documents as part of its bid to track down German-based tax cheats.

"These data are being looked into and evaluated with Hesse state's tax authorities to pursue criminal and fiscal offenses," the BKA said in a joint statement with Hesse's finance ministry and the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office.

Hesse's finance minister, Thomas Schäfer, said that the BKA had approached the state's tax authorities because "we have the specialists and the technical expertise." The state of Hesse was also willing to contribute to the cost of obtaining the files. "We now have to investigate in meticulous detail how valuable the data is from a tax perspective," Schäfer said.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-investigators-in-possession-of-panama-papers-aim-to-prosecute-tax-cheats/a-39547406

[Backseat Driver]

4. Soooo...the "Danny Casolaro" of German financial forensic investigators???

Oh, the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind...


01000101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 01110101 01100011 01101000 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100101 01110011

https://www.convertbinary.com/alphabet/

[ancianita]

6. Who is Danny Casalaro, again? And why does that apply to this man charged with investigating

what and who The Panama Papers laid out?

[csziggy]

10. Casolaro was investigating the October Surprise when he was found dead

Joseph Daniel Casolaro (June 16, 1947 – August 10, 1991) was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times. The medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.[1]

His death became controversial because his notes suggested he was in Martinsburg to meet a source about a story he called "the Octopus." This centered on a sprawling collaboration involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and around Washington, D.C. in the 1980s—the Inslaw case, about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product; the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis, Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election, the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and Iran–Contra.[2]

Casolaro's family argued that he had been murdered; that before he left for Martinsburg, he had apparently told his brother that he had been frequently receiving harassing phone calls late at night; that some of them were threatening; and that if something were to happen to him while in Martinsburg, it would not be an accident. They also cited his well-known squeamishness and fear of blood tests, and stated they found it incomprehensible that if he were going to commit suicide, he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times.[3] A number of law-enforcement officials also argued that his death deserved further scrutiny, and his notes were passed by his family to ABC News and Time Magazine, both of which investigated the case, but no evidence of murder was ever found.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Casolaro

[ancianita]

11. Thank you! Guess I'd better go back and review all that, since a lot of investigators of tax havens

and shell company enablers seem to have 'accidents.'

I should have looked it up in Wikipedia myself, so thanks for your trouble. I've been so distracted by mass death that I forgot.

The well covered, above-the-law wealth of the planet have no trouble sponsoring killers to keep their secret hoards safe.

[Aristus]

5. Every day is starting to seem like the pre-credits sequence of a post-apocalyptic film.

[ancianita]

7. Indeed. What fresh horror will tomorrow bring.

[logme]

8. "cue the" conspiracy theories

I already caught sight of a couple of post developing asinine explanations for this "suicide" on European forums.

[machoneman]

9. Maybe Mnuchin, Trump, Kushner and a few others will follow his lead! One can only hope....