WORLD : Communists in $70-Million Flap
BERLIN — Germany’s new Communist Party admitted today that its treasurer had secretly transferred abroad $70 million, trying to save it from being confiscated by the Bonn government.
The treasurer, Wolfgang Pohl, took responsibility for the transfers to a Soviet front company and has resigned, party spokesman Hanno Harnisch told the ADN news agency. The unauthorized movement of the money prompted a police raid on the party’s headquarters last week.
The vast property and financial holdings of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), successor to the Socialist Unity Party (SED) of the former East Germany, have been placed under control of a government trustee agency.
The Bonn government and Berlin justice authorities said the PDS had broken the law by transferring cash to accounts in the Netherlands and Norway without the agency’s permission.
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