Hans-Martin Tillack

Who is Hans-Martin Tillack?

Hans-Martin Tillack is a German reporter. Born 1961 in Königs Wusterhausen near Berlin, he grew up in Stuttgart.

He studied politology and sociology in Marburg and Berlin, worked for five years as reporter for taz before coming to Stern in 1993 – first in Bonn, from 1999 to 2004 in Brussels, today in Berlin.

In 2005, he received the Leipziger Medienpreis for his EU reporting.

He was the most efficient in exposing Eurostat scandal, the EU statistical body based in Luxembourg. Working for German news magazine Stern, for months he wrote his successive findings and Stern magazine published his revelations about hidden accounts and fictitious contracts. Until May 16 2003 when Financial Times headlines revealed "A vast enterprise for looting community funds". Two top French managers were removed from office and the whole Eurostat directorate was dismissed. Six separate fraud investigations into Eurostat were required by OLAF, the EU anti-fraud body.

Subsequently Hans-Martin Tillack was arrested by Belgian police at the instigation of authorities of the European Union, whose bodies he was investigating in relation to allegations of fraud.