Harking back to the good old days of the Stasi when the state would go to extraordinary lengths to catch its own population in the wrong? Or fair play in the fight against tax evaders?

Angela Merkel has cast aside doubts from across the German political spectrum about the morality of paying a whistle-blower 2.5 million euros (3.5 million dollars) for discs containing data on 1,500 rich Germans’ secret accounts.

Despite warnings that stolen evidence may be tainted and protest from Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz who stated: “The use of stolen bank data constitutes a breach of the privacy of the clients concerned”, Germany’s finance ministry has indicated a willingness to pay for the data.

The newspaper Financial Times Deutschland quoted sources naming the data vendor as a 37-year-old ex-employee of HSBC Private Bank in Geneva.

A 37 year-old, a secret deal for 2.5m euro in cash. Will 2010 be the year of the whistleblower?