The investigation was conducted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a consortium of 47 media including Le Monde, The Guardian, the Miami Herald, La Nacion, following a major data leak submitted anonymously. a little over a year ago to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
These data concern more than 18,000 bank accounts hosted at Credit Suisse between the beginning of the 1940s and the end of the 2010s and belonging to 37,000 people or companies, specifies the daily Le Monde.
“Based on a massive leak of information from thousands of bank accounts administered by Credit Suisse, (the investigation) shows that in defiance of the rules of vigilance imposed on large international banks, the establishment, born in Zurich, harbored funds linked to crime and corruption for several decades,” the newspaper writes.
Credit Suisse rejects these accusations
In a statement, Credit Suisse reacted to these accusations, saying that the data studied is “partial, inaccurate, or is taken out of context, resulting in a biased presentation of the conduct of business” by the bank. “90% of the accounts concerned are now closed, including more than 60% before 2015”, assures the bank, which also specifies “conducting the investigation” concerning the data leak.
In total, more than 100 billion Swiss francs (more than 95 billion euros) are involved in the accounts studied by the consortium. The leaks are mainly focused on developing countries: in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America and customers domiciled in Western Europe represent only 1% of the total, the newspaper specifies.