Feb 21, 2022: According to a report by Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper, a major leak has revealed that Credit Suisse harbors the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes.
The revelations point to a seemingly widespread failure on the part of the lender, despite repeated promises to eliminate suspicious clients and illicit funds.
Credit Suisse in response said it was unable to comment on specific clients but “strongly rejects the allegations and inferences about the bank’s purported business practices”, which it said were “based on partial, selective information taken out of context, resulting in tendentious interpretations of the bank’s business conduct”.
In its response to the media, the bank says these are historic issues involving a small segment of its customers. It says it has maintained momentum with banking regulations across the sector, a strict zero tolerance policy for tax evasion and strict control measures to combat money laundering.
Candice Sun, a spokesperson for the bank, said in a statement that “Credit Suisse strongly rejects the allegations and inferences about the bank’s purported business practices.” She said many of the accounts in the leak date back decades to “a time where laws, practices and expectations of financial institutions were very different from where they are now.”
Credit Suisse is one of the largest wealth managers in the world, handling more than 1.6tn Swiss francs for clients.
The clients of Swiss banks are among the most closely guarded secrets in the world, with the bank protecting the identities of some of the richest people on the planet and tracing how they amassed their fortunes. Now, a leak of data from Credit Suisse, one of the world’s most famous banks, is exposing how the bank held hundreds of millions of dollars in assets for heads of state, intelligence officials, sanctioned businessmen and human rights abusers, among many others.
German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung shared data from a whistle blower of 18,000 bank accounts, collectively holding more than $100 billion, with records covering accounts that were open from the 1940s until well into the 2010s.
Those listed include King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two sons of former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak with accounts worth millions of dollars.
In addition, there were 25 Credit Suisse accounts, containing a total of about $270 million, that belonged to people accused of being involved in a wide-ranging conspiracy surrounding Venezuela’s oil company. The sons of former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, held a total of six accounts at various points, including one in 2003 that was worth $196 million.
With strong banking privacy laws, Switzerland has long been a haven for those seeking to hide money. Over the past decade, it has made the country’s largest banks – notably its two companies, Credit Suisse and UBS – a target for officials in the United States and elsewhere who are involved n cracking down on tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes.
Credit Suisse in 2014 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help Americans file false tax returns and agreed to a fine, and a total refund of $ 2.6 billion. Three years later, the bank paid 5.3 billion to the Department of Justice to settle its marketing allegations against the mortgage-backed securities. Last fall, it agreed to pay 475 million to US and British authorities to settle an investigation into a kickback and bribery scheme in Mozambique.
And this month, a lawsuit is being filed in Switzerland in which Credit Suisse is accused of allowing drug traffickers to launder millions of euros through the bank.
Meanwhile, former Credit Suisse employees told federal prosecutors last year that the bank continued to hide hundreds of millions of dollars for clients long after its 2014 guilty plea, according to a whistleblower lawsuit filed last year by a former bank official and a lawyer for other former employees.
With a 2015 law in Switzwerland restricting journalists from writing articles based on internal bank data, none of the news organizations collaborating on the whistle blowing project were based in the country.
Stay tuned to BaaghiTV for latest news and Updates!
Britain’s PM Johnson to announce end to all COVID curbs in England
