Eric Smit & Siem Eikelenboom

The tax authorities of several countries are chasing Frank Vogel, the Dutch king of the CumEx trade. Claims ranging in the millions of euros are awaiting him in Belgium and Denmark. In Germany, he is a suspect in at least one criminal investigation. A reconstruction of the tumultuous career of a notorious dividend stripper.

Eric Smit & Siem Eikelenboom

At the end of 2005, the FIOD - the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service - was well aware that a Fortis division was engaged in dividend stripping. This type of trade with dividend has seriously disadvantaged tax authorities in a number of countries; the damage amounts to billions of euros. However, the FIOD did not share this information with sister services abroad, which therefore remained ignorant of the fact that their systems were susceptible to this type of fraud as well. It was not until 2013 that the CumEx scandal broke out in Germany.

Eric Smit & Siem Eikelenboom

Few banks committed the CumEx fraud as fanatically as state bank ABN Amro did. Since 2006, the Ministry of Finance had detailed knowledge of this. However, even after the Ministry became the owner of ABN Amro in 2008, the bank knowingly remained involved in transactions that seriously affected tax authorities. The Ministry did not share the knowledge of this fraud with the Minister and did not interfere with the CumEx trading.