Liechtenstein reveals industrial spying probe

ZURICH, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Liechtenstein, focus of international investigations over tax fraud, said on Wednesday a man convicted after stealing data from a Liechtenstein bank was now being investigated for industrial espionage.

Germany and Britain have said they paid an informant for data on secret accounts of citizens held by Liechtenstein banks. The United States, Australia and New Zealand have also joined the search for tax evaders.

Liechtenstein had asked for legal assistance from the prosecutor's offices in the German cities of Bochum and Munich for information on a 42-year-old Liechtenstein citizen called Heinrich Kieber, the country's prosecutor said.

"The investigations concern suspicion of spying out business secrets for the benefit of a foreign party," the Office of the Public Prosecutor said in a statement.

Kieber in 2003 was convicted of fraud after stealing data from Liechtenstein bank LGT, owned by the country's ruling family, where he worked until November 2002.

The bank has said it is almost certain that the client data that were stolen from its trust unit in 2002 are the same as those at the source of Germany's tax probe.

The data -- which Kieber had put on four DVDs -- were of some 1,400 client relations dating from before 2002, LGT said. Some 600 of those clients were in Germany.

Kieber's sentence was suspended after an appeal in 2004 and he was never sent to jail, LGT said.

Kieber's current location was unknown, LGT said. Media have speculated he has assumed a new identity after being paid millions of euros by Germany, and is living in Australia.

International pressure on Liechtenstein to lift the cloak of secrecy from its banks is growing as tax agencies across the globe widen probes into tax evasion involving accounts in the tiny European state.

The country of 35,000 residents nestled between Austria and Switzerland has lured thousands of wealthy investors from across the world with a promise of confidentiality, placing it on an international blacklist of taxation havens. (Reporting by Douwe Miedema; Editing by Charles Dick)