A massive data leak from one of the largest private banks in the world, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug smuggling, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes. Details of accounts linked to 30 Credit Suisse customers from around the world show who owns more than 000 billion Swiss francs with one of the most well-known financial institutions.
The whistleblower forwarded the information to the German newspaper Zdeutsche Zeitung, which shared it with the non-profit journalism group the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and 46 other media organizations around the world, including Britain's Guardian and The New York Times.
The data refer to accounts that were opened from the 1940s to the 2010s, but not the bank's current activities.
The leak shows that Credit Suisse opened accounts and continued to serve not only the ultra-wealthy but also those with apparently troubled histories that could be confirmed with a simple internet search. Among the biggest revelations is the fact that the bank continued to follow up with customers even after bank officials determined there was suspicious activity related to their finances.
"The Guardian" writes that the data show that among the bank's clients were, among others, the head of the stock exchange from Hong Kong who was convicted of corruption, a billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend, as well as directors close to the Venezuelan state oil company.
The king, the sons of the autocrat, the white slave trader
King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two sons of former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak are among those said to have accounts worth millions of dollars at Credit Suisse Bank.
Another supporter of Mubarak who received the services of Credit Suisse is his former spy Omar Suleiman. He and his associates were listed in the records as holding accounts with over £26m in 2007. Suleiman had a fearsome reputation in Egypt, where he oversaw torture and human rights abuses.
Other clients include the sons of a Pakistani intelligence chief who helped channel billions of dollars from the United States and other countries to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
From one of the accounts, mentioned in the data, owned by the Vatican, 350 million euros were transferred for an investment in real estate in London, which is at the center of the current criminal investigation in which several people, including a cardinal, have been charged.
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One of the clients, Stefan Sederholm, a Swedish computer technician who opened an account with Credit Suisse in 2008, received the bank's services two and a half years after he was sentenced to life in prison for trafficking in white slaves in the Philippines.
The data reveal that the bank's clients were also politicians who were associated with corruption, before or during the possession of the bank account. One of the most high-profile cases in Credit Suisse's history involves corrupt Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda. It is estimated that during his three presidential terms, which ended in 1986, the couple extracted 10 billion dollars from the country.
Although Ferdinand Marcos is among the bank's most notorious clients, he is rivaled only by relatives of the brutal Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, who is believed to have stolen five billion dollars in six years. Credit Suisse has long been known to have provided services to Abacha's sons, allowing them to open accounts with $214 million.
The data show that the Swiss bank also provided services to Pavlo Lazarenko, who after one corruption-ridden year as Prime Minister of Ukraine in 1998 applied for an account at Credit Suisse bank. A month after he resigned under pressure from rivals, he opened the first of two accounts in a Swiss bank. One of them later contained over eight million Swiss francs.
Banks obliged to check politicians
Politicians and government officials are among the most risky clients for banks because of their access to government funds, especially in developing countries with weak legal safeguards against corruption.
Banks and other financial institutions are therefore obliged to subject politically exposed persons to the strictest checks.
More than 90 countries, most of them in the developing world, remain in the dark about when their wealthy tax evaders hide money in Swiss accounts.
This was precisely one of the motives of the whistleblower who forwarded the data stating that such a banking system "imposes an unbalanced financial and infrastructural burden on developing countries, contributing to their exclusion from the system in the foreseeable future." "This kind of situation enables corruption and deprives developing countries of necessary tax revenue. As a result, those countries actually suffer from a reverse Swiss Robin Hood venture," the "Guardian" reports the whistleblower's statement.
"I am aware that having an offshore account in Switzerland does not necessarily mean tax evasion or some other financial crime. However, it is likely that a significant number of these accounts were opened with the sole purpose of hiding wealth from fiscal institutions or avoiding paying capital gains tax," the statement added.
The bank claims that these are previous practices
Candice Sun, the bank's spokeswoman, in response to the data leak stated that "Credit Suisse strongly rejects the allegations and implications related to the bank's alleged business practices." She said most of the leaked data dates back several decades to "a time when the laws, practices and expectations of financial institutions were different than they are today."
The leak, dubbed "Swiss Secrets," follows the Panama Papers in 2016, the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Pandora Papers last year. All of these documents shed light on the secretive operations of banks, law firms and offshore financial services providers that enable wealthy people and institutions - including those accused of crimes - to move huge sums of money, mostly beyond the reach of tax authorities and law enforcement.
Switzerland to afford a conscience
The new revelations are likely to increase legal and political pressure on the Swiss banking industry, particularly Credit Suisse, which is still reeling from the sudden ousting of two of its chief executives.
With strong bank secrecy laws, Switzerland has long been a haven for people who want to hide money. In the past decade, the country's biggest banks - notably Credit Suisse and UBS - have been targeted by authorities in the United States and other countries trying to crack down on tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes.
The debate over whether the Swiss banking industry has undergone sufficient reforms is likely to be reignited by another leak. The whistleblower claims that the banks are not the only ones to blame for this situation because they simply "act like good capitalists by maximizing profits within the legal framework in which they operate."
"Simply put, Swiss lawmakers are responsible for enabling financial crimes and - thanks to direct democracy - the Swiss people have the power to do something about it. Although I am aware that banking secrecy laws are partly responsible for Switzerland's economic success, I am convinced that such a rich country should be able to afford a conscience as well."
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