Investigation“Swiss Secrets” | The Zurich establishment provided its services to a sulphurous businessman, who turned out to be a major Balkan trafficker. His account was allegedly used to launder cocaine proceeds.
“Misha Banana”. Not sure that the Credit Suisse bankers knew the little nickname of Rodoljub Radulovic, won by hiding cocaine in shipments of bananas from South America, when opening accounts for him.
The story is no less embarrassing for the bank, which offered its services to a suspected Serbian drug lord for five years. On the run for more than ten years, Rodoljub Radulovic was sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison in 2020 in Serbia. His judgment having been quashed for procedural reasons, a new trial is due to take place soon.
The investigation, led by Serbian justice, showed that Mr. Radulovic had used one of his accounts at Credit Suisse to launder several million euros from his associate Darko Saric, a Montenegrin drug kingpin, between 2008 and 2009. Nothing could be simpler: he deposited suitcases of cash in his account in Serbia before transferring them to Switzerland, on the pretext of buying a boat. The “Swiss Secrets” investigation reveals that Mr. Radulovic had a second account in the prestigious Zurich establishment, hitherto unknown to the investigators.
Credit Suisse, which has never been implicated in this case, has it failed in its due diligence obligations? When questioned, the bank refused to comment on specific files, citing banking secrecy. The chronology of events seriously questions the bank’s control procedures.
When Rodoljub Radulovic opened his accounts, he was certainly not yet a drug trafficker wanted by the courts. But his resume was already well supplied. Heavily in debt, he had above all been pinned twice by American justice for financial fraud and stock market manipulation in the United States. Sentenced to pay more than 12 million dollars in fines (11 million euros) in 2003, he had seen his house overlooking the sea in Florida seized by the courts. Targeted for a time by an international arrest warrant, he had fled to Belgrade to start a sumptuous life and start a business in real estate and hotels, with the support of local politicians.
Directly related to fraudulent transactions
These alarm signals apparently did not scald Credit Suisse: the bank opened two accounts in its name, in 2005 and 2007, on which circulated up to 3.4 million Swiss francs. Could the bank’s employees ignore their client’s troubles, even though he was quoted in press releases from the American stock market watchdog as early as 2001? “It’s the kind of stuff that’s very hard to miss”believes Maira Martini, expert in the fight against money laundering within the NGO Transparency International.
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