The Swiss bank Julius Baer was sentenced in mid-March in Paris to a fine of 5 million euros for aggravated money laundering in 2008, as part of a carbon tax fraud case called “Twilight”, a-t- we learned Thursday from a judicial source.
In this 146 million euro component of the VAT “scam of the century” on the pollution rights market, twelve people were sentenced to terms of up to 10 years in prison in 2017 and 2019.
The Turkish bank Guaranteed Bankasi had been inflicted 8 million euros fine.
At the end of the investigations, the bank Julius Baer had also been sent back to the criminal court but her indictment had been canceled for a question of procedure. His case had been severed and the bank was eventually sent back to the 32nd Correctional Chamber to stand trial on its own. After a trial on December 16, 2021, Julius Baer was sentenced on March 14, 2022 to one fine of 5 million euros as well as to pay €400,000 of damages and interests to the French state.
“The bank disputes the charges against it and has therefore appealed the decision,” his lawyer Thierry Marembert told AFP. “She recalls that these are very old and isolated facts. The investigation itself, which lasted almost a decade, has obviously been mentioned in financial communication for a long time,” he added.
The bank had to pay a deposit of 3.75 million euros during the investigations.
The banking establishment was condemned for not having carried out the necessary checks on an account created in February 2008 within its branch in Singapore, in the name of a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, Montibely Investors, according to the decision consulted by the AFP.
The account had been opened for a Franco-Israeli client, via a Tel Aviv business provider. An arrangement “devoid of distinct economic reality” which was “only intended to serve to disburse VAT fraud operations”, underlines the court. “By refraining from any elementary verification, both in the opening of an account presenting many astonishing or even atypical elements, and during the abnormal functioning of this account, (the bank) showed patent negligence and deliberate, making possible or even favoring the offense of money laundering”, writes the court in particular.
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Until it was closed by its beneficiary in October 2008, this account was credited then debited for around 1.9 million euros.
Twilight: carbon tax fraud
The “Twilight” file is one of the many branches of the gigantic VAT scam on the CO2 market, which in total cost 1.6 billion euros to the French tax authorities.
Considered a specialty of the Franco-Israeli environment, the “carbon tax” fraud cost a total of 1.6 billion euros to the State. It took place between 2008 and 2009 on the market for rights to pollute set up under the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases, then very little regulated. The scheme was simple: buy tax-free pollution rights in a European country, resell them in France at a price including VAT, then invest the funds in a new operation without ever paying the VAT back to the State.