AFP - German prosecutors said Friday they were investigating around 1,100 customers and staff of Swiss bank Credit Suisse's local operations on suspicion of hiding money from German tax authorities.

"The Credit Suisse clients have investments in total of around 1.2 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars)," Dirk Negenborn, spokesman for prosecutors in Duesseldorf, western Germany, told AFP.

He said the total amount of tax owed was unclear. According to several sources, the Credit Suisse information should allow German tax authorities to recover up to 400 million euros.

The probe stems from a CD with confidential banking data sold to the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper reported.

In February, the state bought stolen information on 1,500 suspected German tax cheats holding bank accounts in Switzerland.

German press reports have said the state shelled out 2.5 million euros for the CD.