PARIS -- A hack of a Luxembourg bank's records is emerging as a key detail of the so-called Clearstream affair here, a national scandal that's pulled top-level politicians, powerful corporate executives and now a white-hat hacking group into its orbit.
So that giant sucking sound you hear isn't your toilet, but the French political elite ....
Like a spy novel or a French version of All the President's Men, the scandal has captivated the press, and produced a steady stream of leaks about political vendettas, secret meetings between high-level government officials and anonymous letters penned by a mysterious "Le Corbeau" (the Raven).
The Courbeau Code???
The apparent electronic espionage now adds a high-tech angle to what many are calling "the French Watergate." At the heart of the storm is a sophisticated conspiracy to falsely implicate a number of celebrities, high-ranking officials and political candidates in a bribery scandal.
WoT, food for oil is breaking in the French press? Sacré bleu!
Among the falsified evidence produced by the conspirators before the fraud unraveled were confidential bank records originating with the Clearstream bank in Luxembourg, which is, honest to God, a real country in Europe.
The records were expertly modified to make it appear that some French politicians had secretly established offshore bank accounts to receive bribes. The falsified records were then sent to investigators, with enough authentic account information left in to make them appear credible.
Agent Smith: ... we're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
Neo: Yeah. Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about, I give you the finger ...
[He does]
Neo: and you give me my phone call.
A French justice department official close to the probe, speaking on condition of anonymity, said prosecutors were still in the early stage of their investigation, but have confirmed that someone hacked into the bank. "It is true that someone did enter the bank's system and altered records -- we do know that," the official told Wired News. "But we still do not know who did exactly what."
[Reading from "The Hackers' Manifesto."]
Agent Bob: "This is our world now. The world of the electron and the switch; the beauty of the baud. We exist without nationality, skin color, or religious bias. You wage wars, murder, cheat, lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto." Huh? Right? Manifesto? "You may stop me, but you can't stop us all!!"
The complicated affair has its roots in a 2001 investigation of bribery payments deposited in Clearstream accounts from the sale of French frigates in Taiwan. While the bribes were real enough, the investigation became a platform for a Nixonian dirty-tricks operation.
Unavailable for comment ...
One of the targets of the frame-up was presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, and press reports have linked his rival, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, to the smear campaign.
Non! Could not happen on mai watch ...
French President Jacques Chirac defended de Villepin from the charges during a nationally televised interview last month, and de Villepin has filed libel suits against four journalists.
Merde! That Armstrong is going to win AGAIN ...
Last month, prosecutors formerly charged Lebanese-born ImadNo jokes, please Lahoud for allegedly creating the falsified bank records. Lahoud previously worked for the French secret service and headed a department of network engineers for Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space, or EADS.
Also known this year as Boeing's biatch ...
Also arrested was Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former vice president for EADS, who allegedly distributed the records ...
The rest of Frogistan's follies EFL ... 
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