Boris Becker has opened up on the time he narrowly avoided a prison sentence for tax evasion 20 years before he went to jail. The German tennis legend is the subject of a new documentary, filmed right up until he was sentenced to 30 months in prison for charges related to his bankruptcy. And Becker explains how he was caught up in a similar storm in Germany back in 2002.
Becker hit headlines last year when he was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act and sentenced to 30 months in prison, serving eight before he was deported. The case garnered huge attention and is covered in Boom! Boom! The World vs Boris Becker – a new Apple TV+ documentary all about his life before, during and after tennis.
In the two-part series, the former world No 1 discusses an old case from 2002 and explains how close he came to a three-year-and-nine-month prison sentence in Germany. “Because of the reportedly amounts of money I owned, the Germans started to be a little bit what’s the word? Envious,” he tells the camera, recalling the incident.
“‘This young guy makes a lot of money and I’m sure there’s something fishy going on.’ They started prosecution for tax evasion, if the opponent is the government they’re very powerful.” The six-time Grand Slam champion revealed the extent of the tax authorities’ operation, as his home was broken into while he was in Miami.
“I got an early morning call from my lawyer saying the police with the tax authorities want to break into your house and – more importantly – they want to break into your safe,” Becker explained. “It was three or four in the morning when I got the call and I got the code wrong, you don’t expect the government to break into your house in Munich.”
The 55-year-old also alleged that some nude photos of his then-wife Barbara Becker were taken from the safe and have never been returned since, adding: “I said there’s jewellery and there’s not many documents but there were nude pictures from my pregnant wife so just be aware of the pictures. They took everything and the pictures haven’t been returned since.”
Barbara herself appears throughout the documentary and said the incident felt like a “complete intrusion and invasion” as Becker explained that he had to settle for £112,000 (250,000 German Marks). “Their claim was I had a theoretical resident in Munich while I was officially residing in Monaco,” he alleged.
“My sisters had been there, had a flat and she had a guest room. And when I was in Munich to see my friends instead of a hotel I went to the guest room of my sister. That was my crime.”
Recalling the trial, Becker said: “We went on trial and the prosecutor asked the judge for three years and nine months behind bars and you’re fuming, you want to get up and speak to the guy ‘you’ve got your marbles wrong.’ But you have to shut up. I got two years of probation, I paid a fine of 250,000 Marks and the case was closed.”
Becker famously did wind up in prison two decades later and was released in December under a fast-track scheme allowing foreign criminals to be deported. He has since returned to his commentary job at Eurosport and has previously shared the harrowing details of his time in jail.
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