Credit Suisse is said to have accepted criminals as clients

Credit Suisse is currently spared nothing. On Sunday, an international network of journalists accused her of having accepted corrupt autocrats, war criminals and other criminals as clients for many years.

A network of journalists is making serious allegations against Credit Suisse.

Michael Buholzer / Keystone

tsf. The international Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project journalist network (OCCRP), documents about the accounts of more than 30,000 Credit Suisse clients worldwide have been leaked from anonymous sources. 18,000 accounts with a total value of over 100 billion dollars were evaluated. 46 media companies took part and published their research on Sunday evening.

Like those involved in the network “Southgerman newspaper” writes, the documents are intended to provide insights into the heart of Credit Suisse. This should show alleged omissions in the review of customers. For many years, the second largest bank in Switzerland has accepted corrupt autocrats, suspected war criminals, controversial secret service chiefs, human traffickers, drug dealers and other criminals as customers.

The network of journalists accuses Credit Suisse of allowing criminals to keep their accounts “if the bank could have known long ago that they were dealing with criminals.”

Informant calls bank secrecy immoral

The informant who passed the extensive data set to the journalist consortium commented on the data: “I believe that Swiss banking secrecy is immoral. (. . .) This situation allows for corruption and deprives developing countries of much-needed tax revenues.” The ostensible purpose of protecting financial privacy is just a fig leaf to cover up the nefarious role of Swiss banks as collaborators with tax evaders. In fact, the data is intended to highlight the elites of many developing countries who appear to have found refuge for questionable fortunes at Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse defends itself

Credit Suisse rejects the allegations. As she announced on Sunday, she has reviewed a large number of accounts that could be related to the allegations, following numerous inquiries from the consortium over the past three weeks. Around 90 percent of the accounts checked were closed or were already in the process of being closed before the media inquiries. Over 60 percent of cases were closed before 2015.

For the remaining active accounts, Credit Suisse was confident that due diligence and other legally required controls were in place, the statement notes. In conducting its business, it complies with applicable global and local laws and regulations, she continues.

The bank speaks of a “concerted action with the intention of bringing the Swiss financial center into disrepute”. The cases were based on incomplete, inaccurate or selective information. These were taken out of context and would thus lead to tendentious interpretations of the bank’s business conduct. The bank assured that it would follow the “highest standards of conduct”. The bank notes that it cannot comment on individual cases for legal reasons.

heads of state, oligarchs and cardinals

The data of the so-called “Suisse Secrets” range from the 1940s to well into the past decade, more than two thirds of the available accounts were apparently opened after the year 2000. According to research, some of them still exist today.

For example, several family members of Kazakhstan’s ex-president Nursultan Nazarbayev are prominently represented in the data. Nazarbayev’s family is still considered extremely powerful and influential. And apparently she is also extremely rich. According to the leaked data, the ex-president’s two daughters and son-in-law held accounts with Credit Suisse, most of which were closed in 2012. A company account, which Nazarbayev’s son-in-law also had access to, contained values ​​of more than CHF 843 million.

Nervis Villalobos, Venezuela’s former deputy energy minister, is also in the data. He is said to have been one of the string pullers in the bribery scandal surrounding the state oil company PDVSA. The man, who has since been accused of corruption in the United States, had an account with Credit Suisse until 2013.

The data also included accounts of a human trafficker convicted in the Philippines and an Egyptian murderer. The customers also included cardinals allegedly involved in crooked business or the former Siemens manager Eduard Seidel, who was convicted of bribery in 2008. The former Nigerian boss of the Munich global company had six accounts with Credit Suisse at times. According to the data, assets worth more than 54 million francs were entered on one of them as a high in 2006 – a sum that cannot be explained by his salary at Siemens. At the request of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the ex-manager denied wrongdoing.

According to the bank data, the Jordanian King Abdullah II, the former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the Algerian autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the Armenian ex-President Armen Sarkissyan also appear in the documents. Sarkissian resigned from his post as President in January shortly after she sent him an inquiry about his accounts with Credit Suisse, writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The politician said he had closed all accounts before he was required to declare his assets – a national anti-corruption agency is now looking into the matter.

Consortium of 46 media

The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” has the Credit Suisse data together with the OCCRP and 46 media partners from all over the world, including the British one “Guardians”, “Le Monde” in France and the “New York Times”, evaluated. In Germany were the TV stations NDR and WDR involved in the research. The results were titled “Suisse Secrets” released.

The research network also asked the Swiss judge and university professor Monika Roth about the allegations. Roth criticized the fact that the bank also accepted ex-politicians from Venezuela who were suspected of corruption as customers as “hair-raising”. This is a total failure and actually leads all preventive measures against money laundering and corruption to nothing. She points out that according to Swiss law, banks are not allowed to accept funds that could originate from criminal transactions. They would have to assess these risks and would have to report if they suspected that assets could come from criminal activities. Since there is a risk of corruption among foreign politicians and their families, the banks have to check the origin of such funds very carefully.

No Swiss media company involved

No media company from Switzerland took part in the research. The reason is that, according to the Swiss Banking Act, it is possible to prosecute journalists for research related to leaked bank data, writes the network. The “Tages-Anzeiger”, which belongs to the journalists’ consortium, announced that a legal article created in 2015 made it impossible for journalists in Switzerland to work with secret bank data – even if there was a considerable public interest in their publication. Article 47 of the Banking Act states that anyone who “discloses information about bank customers to other people” can be punished with up to three years in prison.

Credit Suisse has been embroiled in numerous scandals over the past two decades, paying more than $10 billion in fines over that period. Credit Suisse is currently on trial in Switzerland for allegedly helping a Bulgarian drug cartel launder money. Credit Suisse denies the allegation.


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