53 out of the 70 cases over the past five years resulted in a conviction, according to figures published this week.

The total of the transactions related to these cases amounted to around 23 millions euros, wrote justice minister Elisabeth Margue in a  parliamentary response to LSAP MPs Dan Biancalana and Mars Di Bartolomeo.

Esch-sur-Alzette alderman Pim Knaff (DP) was recently found guilty of aggravated tax fraud and was made to pay a fine of almost €10,000 following a consent judgement ( "jugement sur accord"). This procedure was only introduced in Luxembourg around nine years ago and refers to a negotiated agreement between the accused and the public prosecutor's office.

But the former Esch mayor is not the only person to have made use of this procedure. Within the last five years there have been 70 judgements of this kind in tax evasion or fraud cases, resulting in 53 convictions. The total amount of undeclared taxes in these cases reached nearly 23 million. In the worst offence of the lot, the accused attempted to evade paying around 2 million euros in taxes.

Over the past five years the state and district prosecutor's offices issued fines worth just under 2.8 million euros for these cases. There have been 13 consent judgements this year alone due to tax fraud. Information on all these cases may be found on the the Ministry of Justice website, although details have been rendered anonymous.