The entrepreneur Andrea Tandler, who is accused of tax evasion worth millions, spoke personally about the mask affair for the first time on Wednesday morning. At the beginning of the criminal trial before the Munich Regional Court I, Tandler, daughter of the former CSU finance minister and general secretary Gerold Tandler, rejected the accusations of the public prosecutor’s office that 23.5 million euros from the brokerage of Corona protective equipment had been intentionally incorrectly taxed and thereby harmed the tax authorities Having caused damage amounting to 15.2 million euros. “It was never my intention to cheat,” Tandler said in a detailed and at times emotional statement to the court. She said that the start of the coronavirus pandemic was a “hectic time” and “mistakes may have happened.”
The public prosecutor’s office accuses the Munich PR entrepreneur of knowingly enriching herself through tax fraud. From February 2020 onwards, Tandler arranged contracts between the Swiss company Emix Trading GmbH and federal and state health ministries and received commissions totaling 48.4 million euros. She also used her contacts with CSU politicians such as European MP Monika Hohlmeier. The daughter of CSU father Franz Josef Strauss is a childhood friend of Tandler’s and opened doors to the relevant ministries for her – she is said to have not received any money for this.
According to the indictment, co-defendant Darius N., as Tandler’s partner, is said to have helped with tax evasion. Both have been in custody since January 24, 2023.
At the beginning of her statement, the defendant addressed the image that, in her view, was painted of her in public: “There she sits, the daughter of a CSU amigo.” Tandler emphasized that she was neither a member of the CSU nor politically active. “I was born into the family of the former CSU general secretary,” said Tandler. “But I can’t help it.” The impression that a politician’s daughter who has never worked before is ripping off the state in a crisis situation is wrong. The 40-year-old was used to working all her life, for example as a waitress at the Oktoberfest. After completing her studies, she set up her own business with an advertising agency and never relied on the help of her politician father. It wasn’t clear to her “that the name Tandler could be valuable.”
She wanted to use the money from the mask business to build a “new business existence” together with Darius N. Tandler said that she suffers from chronic migraines and wanted to “get out of the hamster wheel of the service industry” even before the corona pandemic. Shortly before her appearance in court, the defense attorney handed her a glass of water with medication.
She maintains a “friendship with Mr. N.” and they are also “partners for life.”
Tandler also contradicted the prosecution’s assumption that she and co-defendant Darius N. were life partners – even though she referred to him as a life partner in chats “because he was an important person in my life.” She maintains a “friendship with Mr. N.” and they are also “partners for life.” This is relevant because the public prosecutor’s office accuses Tandler, among other things, of transferring half of the Corona income to N. and thereby evading the gift tax. Before being taken into custody, N. worked as a restaurateur and ran a café in Munich.
The prosecution assumes that Tandler arranged the mask deals as a sole proprietor and would have had to pay higher taxes as a result. Tandler, however, explained that she always organized all transactions together with Darius N. “In my opinion he deserved half of it,” Tandler said. She emphasized that the transaction took a lot of time and effort.
Tandler’s statement was the first public statement on the case, which became public in early 2021. At that time, the extent of Tandler’s mask business only gradually came to light. From February 2020 onwards, Tandler arranged transactions between her Swiss client Emix and the health ministries in the federal government, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. At the time, Emix was charging hefty prices of up to 8.90 euros per FFP-2 mask – which was quite expensive even during the acute mask shortage at the beginning of the pandemic. Emix earned a total of 700 million euros, and Tandler received commissions of almost 50 million euros.
The Corona deals per se are not the problem
But it is not the Corona deals per se that put Tandler and N. in custody at the beginning of the year and now in the dock. Other, more prominent figures have also enriched themselves from mask businesses, such as the former CSU Justice Minister Alfred Sauter or the former CSU Bundestag member Georg Nüßlein – there were no criminal consequences for them. Only Tandler’s handling of all the millions is legally relevant: In its indictment, the Munich I public prosecutor’s office accuses the entrepreneur of intentionally incorrectly taxing her commissions worth millions.
Among other things, the 40-year-old is said to have taxed the commissions through a GmbH that was only founded together with Darius N. on April 6, 2020, instead of as a sole proprietor, in order to avoid higher income tax. There is also the suspicion of gift tax fraud and trade tax evasion: Tandler is said to have billed her income through a fictitious company headquarters in the Munich suburb of Grünwald, even though, according to the investigators, she conducted her business from Munich. In Grünwald the trade tax rate is only half as high.
All in all, the tax authorities are said to have lost taxes amounting to 15.2 million euros.
In addition, Tandler is said to have applied for and received 9,000 euros in Corona aid from the state for her advertising agency in spring 2020 due to liquidity bottlenecks. Although the entrepreneur paid the money back after a year, the public prosecutor still sees her behavior as subsidy fraud.
The Tandler case was also examined by an investigative committee of the Bavarian state parliament, along with other mask deals. In July 2022, she refused to testify during her appearance before MPs, which she had previously canceled twice. For many observers, the woman remained a mystery.
At the start of the trial on Wednesday, Tandler said she now wanted to ensure transparency and leave no question unanswered. There is “absolutely nothing I have to hide.”