Famed chef Alfons Schuhbeck, accused of tax evasion, made an extensive confession before the Munich I Regional Court. “I did some wrong things,” he said on Wednesday. “I deceived myself, my friends and acquaintances and also my defense attorneys to the end, because I didn’t want to admit that I failed in business.”
He “repeatedly took the opportunity to reduce sales and thus took money out of the cash register,” Schuhbeck said. The public prosecutor accuses the 73-year-old of using a computer program to smuggle revenue through the tax administration. In total, there are more than €2.3 million in taxes that Schuhbeck would have evaded between 2009 and 2016.
Schuhbeck confirmed that such a tool existed. The statements made by his former IT specialist, who weighed heavily on his boss at the beginning of the process last week, are “generally correct”.
Schuhbeck said he couldn’t explain where all the money went. He “above all else plugged financial holes and supported my children in their education.” He wanted to enable them to study, which he could not complete on his own.
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“I didn’t spend the money on a life of luxury (…)”, says Schuhbeck. “I don’t play either.” He also has no “other vices”. “I don’t have any buried foreign accounts or anything else.”