UPDATED
Leak gives details on more than 30,000 Credit Suisse bank clients
A leak of data from Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, reveals details of the accounts of more than 30,000 clients and points to possible failures of due diligence in checks on many customers, according to reports.
Credit Suisse said in a statement that it “strongly rejects the allegations and insinuations about the bank’s purported business practices”.
The German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it received the data anonymously through a secure digital mailbox more than a year ago.
It said it is unclear whether the source was an individual or a group, and the newspaper did not make any payment or promises.
The newspaper said it evaluated the data, which ranged from the 1940s until well into the last decade, along with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and dozens of media partners including The New York Times and The Guardian.
It said the data points to the bank having accepted “corrupt autocrats, suspected war criminals and human traffickers, drug dealers and other criminals” as customers.
Credit Suisse said the allegations are “predominantly historical” and that “the accounts of these matters are based on partial, inaccurate, or selective information taken out of context, resulting in tendentious interpretations of the bank’s business conduct”.
The bank said it had reviewed a large number of accounts potentially associated with the allegations, and about 90% of them “are today closed or were in the process of closure prior to receipt of the press inquiries, of which over 60% were closed before 2015”.
As for accounts that remain active, the bank said it is “comfortable that appropriate due diligence, reviews and other control related steps were taken in line with our current framework”.
The bank also said the law prevents it from commenting on “potential client relationships”.
Switzerland has sought in recent years to shed its image as a haven for tax evasion, money laundering and the embezzlement of government funds, practices carried out through the misuse of its banking secrecy policies. But those laws still draw criticism.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung published an excerpt from a statement by the source of the leak.
“I believe that Swiss banking secrecy laws are immoral,” it said. “The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders.”
Credit Suisse had autocrats, criminals as clients — report
A global media investigation dubbed Suisse Secrets has revealed that Switzerland's second-largest bank failed to crack down on illicit funds passing through accounts held by dictators, criminals and corrupt politicians.
Credit Suisse clients included a human trafficker and billionaire who ordered his girlfriend’s
murder, according to a global media investigation
Banking giant Credit Suisse has for years opened accounts for autocrats, drug dealers, suspected war criminals and human traffickers, a consortium of global media outlets reported Sunday.
The Suisse Secrets investigation, from massive data leaked by a whistleblower to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), reveals the owners of 100 billion Swiss francs ($109 billion, €96 billion) held in the secretive Swiss-based institution.
SZ, German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, Britain's Guardian and the New York Times were among more than 40 media organizations involved in the investigation under the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
What did the Suisse Secrets probe uncover?
The media outlets analyzed the leaked data from 30,000 Credit Suisse clients from all over the world.
The accounts were opened anytime from the 1940s to well into the past decade. More than two-thirds were opened after 2000, and many still exist today.
Those exposed include a human trafficker convicted in the Philippines, a Hong Kong stock exchange boss jailed for bribery and an Egyptian billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend.
Other clients include numerous heads of state and government, ministers, intelligence agents as well as oligarchs and entrepreneurs with dubious reputations, the media outlets said.
SZ reported that a former Siemens manager who was convicted of bribery in 2008 was named as having six accounts.
In 2006, one of the former Siemens manager's accounts had assets worth more than 54 million Swiss francs (currently worth around €51.66 million) — a sum the newspaper said cannot be due to his Siemens salary.
The leak also reveals secret accounts held by Jordan's King Abdullah II, Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Algerian autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the Armenian ex-President Armen Sarkissian.
Armenia's former President Armen Sarkissian was among several politicians who
were named in the Suisse Secrets leak
Sarkissian resigned as president in January, shortly after SZ contacted him to inquire about his accounts at Credit Suisse.
The former president said he had closed all accounts before he was required to declare his assets.
Bank failed to fully probe suspect clients
The leak points to a widespread failure of due diligence by Credit Suisse in evaluating and rejecting dubious clients and those handling illegal funds.
SZ reported that fraudsters could have opened accounts or kept accounts even "if the bank could have known long ago that they were dealing with criminals."
Reporters spoke to several former employees of the bank, who described a "highly toxic corporate culture that incentivized taking on risk to maximize profits — and bonuses," OCCRP wrote on its website.
Former employees said this led to a culture of two sets of rules for two sets of clients: the rich and the ultra-rich.
The whistleblower, whose name remains unknown to the media partners, described Swiss banking secrecy as "immoral."
"The pretense of protecting financial privacy is just a fig leaf to cover up the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators with tax evaders," the whistleblower said.
Credit Suisse's headquarters in Zurich
Credit Suisse rejects allegations
Credit Suisse on Sunday vehemently denied the accusations, saying the investigation is "based on incomplete, inaccurate or selective information taken out of context, leading to tendentious interpretations of the bank's business conduct."
The bank said that 90% of the accounts cited had already been closed.
As for accounts that remain active, the bank said it is "comfortable that appropriate due diligence, reviews and other control-related steps were taken in line with our current framework."
The bank also said the law prevents it from commenting on "potential client relationships."
Switzerland has long been one of the world's most opaque financial centers. But the country has sought in recent years to shed its image as a haven for tax evasion, money laundering and the embezzlement of government funds.
Swiss banks now exchange information about account holders with a number of countries, but not some of the poorest and most corrupt nations.
The investigation found that a large number of the customers in the Suisse Secrets data come from Venezuela, Egypt, Ukraine and Tajikistan.
Credit Suisse has been involved in dozens of scandals over the past two decades and paid more than $10 billion in fines.
This month, the bank became the first major Swiss lender to face criminal charges over whether it helped a Bulgarian drug cartel to launder money. Credit Suisse denies the allegation.
Last month, the bank lost its chairman Antonio Horta-Osorio after he twice broke COVID-19 rules.
mm/wd (AP, dpa)
DW RECOMMENDS
Suisse Secrets leak casts new light on bank’s role in mine sale that helped finance violence around 2008 election
20 February 2022 -
COME HELL OR HIGH WATER
Key points:
• Credit Suisse opened two accounts for Billy Rautenbach, a notorious mining magnate who was later sanctioned for his role in Zimbabwe’s 2008 election.
• The accounts were opened weeks before a mining deal funneled $100m to Robert Mugabe’s government, which reportedly funded violence that helped him win the election.
• The sanctioned Rautenbach was able to sell his shares from the deal for a huge profit, but the mine was left undeveloped for over a decade.
In 2008 Zimbabwe was at a turning point. President Robert Mugabe faced electoral defeat by pro-democracy challengers for the first time in two decades. Suddenly his cash-starved regime received a surprise $100m, which it allegedly funnelled into a violent campaign that enforced the status quo and kept the country on the road to an economic disaster from which it has yet to recover.
Now, leaked data from Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse have shed new light on the role the bank played in the deal that saved Mugabe from potential defeat and blocked an opportunity for political and economic reform.
The $100m came from the sale of platinum mining rights Mugabe’s government had quickly appropriated, then given to a company owned by Muller Conrad “Billy” Rautenbach, a longtime friend of the regime. Mugabe’s administration used the proceeds of the deal to pay for the president’s campaign of violence, according to multiple reports.
Rautenbach and Credit Suisse knew each other well. Both owned a large share of Central African Mining and Exploration Company (CAMEC). By mid-2007 the bank owned 6% of CAMEC through its London-based investment subsidiary, Credit Suisse Securities Ltd.
Credit Suisse touted Rautenbach as a key asset in the region. Its mining analysts promoted CAMEC in the press and in briefing notes, telling investors the company was a “new major in the making” and a possible rival to mining behemoth Xstrata.
Credit Suisse also gave CAMEC, which was listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market index, a $60m line of credit, which the company used.
On March 4 2008, a chain of events began that would quickly get the Mugabe administration the money it needed for its re-election campaign, while also earning Rautenbach a sizeable profit. It started when Rautenbach opened two accounts with Credit Suisse, according to leaked bank records that are part of the Suisse Secrets investigation, coordinated by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and based on a huge trove of banking data leaked to German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Then, two weeks later, the Zimbabwean government strong-armed mining company Anglo American into handing over a tranche of land that included the rights for mining platinum there. The government immediately transferred those rights to Rautenbach’s offshore company and a state mining company.
Then, two weeks later, the Zimbabwean government strong-armed mining company Anglo American into handing over a tranche of land that included the rights for mining platinum there. The government immediately transferred those rights to Rautenbach’s offshore company and a state mining company.
CAMEC announced a few days later, on March 28, that it would issue 200-million shares of its stock worth about $1.99m. One of the buyers that helped finance the controversial deal was reportedly Credit Suisse, which bought an unknown number of shares. The majority was bought by Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, a US-based hedge fund (now called Sculptor Capital Management).
Two weeks later, on April 11, CAMEC bought out Rautenbach’s company for $5m and 215-million CAMEC shares. CAMEC provided its new company with $100m to enable it “to comply with its contractual obligations” to Mugabe’s government, according to CAMEC’s stock market filings. But the money does not appear to have been used for meeting any obligation or doing any mining. Instead, the company was widely reported to have transferred the funds to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF political party.
With a flurry of activity, the entire process was completed in less than three weeks. CAMEC had its mining rights, the Mugabe regime had $100m and Rautenbach had pocketed a substantial sum.
A former executive at the mining company that had to give up the platinum rights, speaking anonymously due to the risks posed by commenting, said it was obvious they had to comply.
“There was no doubt our presence [in Zimbabwe] was under threat had we not agreed to the surrender of land,” he said, adding that Rautenbach and CAMEC “relied solely on ... political connections”.
Documents from a UK government corruption investigation looking at mining deals in central Africa, obtained by OCCRP, showed CAMEC may have acquired “tainted assets from those who engage in corruption”.
The $100m arrived within weeks of Mugabe losing the first round of elections to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. With a run-off vote looming and money in the bank to pay thugs and supporters, Zanu-PF set to work delivering on a threat to punish anyone who betrayed the party at the ballot box.
Within days of the money arriving, a three-month campaign of terror had started.
Soldiers and armed gangs unleashed Operation Makavhoterapapi? (Where did you put your vote?), in which more than 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 attacked. Tsvangirai was forced to flee the country only four days after the $100m arrived with the regime. With the opposition decimated by violence, Mugabe went uncontested into the next round.
Credit Suisse to pay $475m over Mozambican corruption scandal
A tuna fishing industry project in Mozambique saw much of the proceeds diverted via kickbacks.
“That money totally brought about all the heartache, pain, gerrymandering, violence, intimidation, repression that took place at the 2008 election,” said Roy Bennett, a former anti-Mugabe politician, on a Zimbabwean radio show in 2012. “[The election violence] is directly linked to that $100m.”
Three days after the platinum deal closed, and as Zimbabwe descended into violence, a Credit Suisse research paper lauded CAMEC as one of its “African 20” stock picks.
There is no evidence Credit Suisse knew about the planned corruption, but it should have seen that the deal was suspicious. A classified US State Department message, sent on May 23 2008 and later released by WikiLeaks, described the sale as a “swiftly concluded and murky deal”.
Rautenbach was already a controversial figure when Credit Suisse opened his accounts in early March that year, having fled fraud charges in SA and been deported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for mining-related corruption. A 2006 UN report questioned his integrity and criticised inadequate due diligence on his DRC mining deals.
Rautenbach’s accounts at Credit Suisse were open for several months after the US and EU sanctioned him for his role in subverting Zimbabwe’s democracy. It’s not clear if Rautenbach closed them or if the bank acted.
“It beggars belief that Credit Suisse continued to provide Rautenbach with banking facilities given the furore created by CAMEC gifting $100m to Mugabe,” said Anneke van Woudenberg, executive director of UK-based corporate watchdog RAID.
“Credit Suisse’s process to verify its clients was either woefully inadequate or completely ignored,” she said.
By the end of May 2008 the two Rautenbach accounts were worth more than $20m, and potentially as much as $38m, though OCCRP cannot assess whether these funds were tied directly to the platinum deal. The accounts were finally closed in April 2009 after UK authorities froze Rautenbach’s holdings in CAMEC.
By then Mugabe was well into his fifth term and Rautenbach had already profited from the platinum sale.
Even before CAMEC took control of the Zimbabwe platinum mine the company was growing rapidly during the height of the early 2000s commodity boom. Its share price soared and by 2007 it had attracted a range of large institutional investors eager to capitalise on rising metals prices.
A business intelligence consultant with knowledge of Rautenbach’s dealings, who requested anonymity for professional reasons, said companies such as CAMEC relied on backing from institutional banks and investors to secure mining deals.
Documents from that case describe a March 2008 visit to the DRC and Zimbabwe by an Och-Ziff executive. He met Rautenbach, described in documents as a 'Zimbabwe shareholder' of a 'London stock exchange-listed mining company with operations in the DRC'. The documents corroborate Rautenbach’s role in the platinum rights deal and the $100m that reportedly made its way to Mugabe.
“[The banks and companies] bring not only capital, but high-level connections and influence. Investors in CAMEC were desperate to defend CAMEC and Rautenbach.”
By late 2008 one of Credit Suisse’s leading Africa mining analysts had even joined CAMEC as its head of investor relations.
Rautenbach also held a major stake in CAMEC and was responsible for most of its day-to-day operations in the DRC, where he had long been a key player in the troubled mining sector, often acting on behalf of Mugabe’s regime.
“[Banks and companies] liked that Rautenbach got things done — he was the hands-on organiser,” said the business intelligence consultant.
To finance the platinum rights acquisition CAMEC had tapped old and new investors. Credit Suisse bought in, but the main investor was a New York-based hedge fund then called Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, which would later become enmeshed in a lawsuit that shed light on the Zimbabwe deal.
In September 2016 Och-Ziff admitted to bribing officials in countries across Africa, from the DRC to Libya, and agreed to pay a $412m fine to the US department of justice to settle pending criminal charges.
Documents from that case describe a March 2008 visit to the DRC and Zimbabwe by an Och-Ziff executive. He met Rautenbach, described in documents as a “Zimbabwe shareholder” of a “London stock exchange-listed mining company with operations in the DRC”. The documents corroborate Rautenbach’s role in the platinum rights deal and the $100m that reportedly made its way to Mugabe.
According to media reports, the Och-Ziff executive’s trip to Zimbabwe and the DRC was organised by Credit Suisse.
Credit Suisse did not respond to questions about specific accounts or customers. The bank said it “operates its business in compliance with all applicable global and local laws and regulations” and that it had strengthened its “risk management framework and control systems”.
Rautenbach did not respond to questions.
From Algeria to Zim: how Africa’s autocratic elites cycle in and out of power
In November 2008, once the scale of Zimbabwe’s election violence had become clear, the US Treasury sanctioned several Mugabe “cronies”, including Rautenbach and one of his companies, accusing him of supporting mining deals that benefited corrupt officials.
The EU followed suit in January 2009, sanctioning Rautenbach and hundreds of Zimbabwean officials and enablers. The EU lifted its sanctions in 2012, while US sanctions remained in place until 2014. Rautenbach had reportedly lobbied the US and EU to get off the blacklists.
In September 2009 Kazakh mining company Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) agreed to buy CAMEC for an estimated $955m, delivering a huge payday to its shareholders, including Rautenbach and Credit Suisse.
Rautenbach never publicly revealed how much he profited from the sale to ENRC, but OCCRP analysis of the share price shows he would have made at least $99m, on top of the $5m he earned when the platinum rights were sold.
CAMEC’s dealings in Zimbabwe were so dubious that ENRC was required to file a Suspicious Activity Report to UK authorities when it bought the company, according to court documents OCCRP obtained.
The report said CAMEC “might have been involved in breaches of Zimbabwe sanctions” and “might have made unlawful payments in order to secure or retain its mining licences”.
Because Rautenbach was under EU sanctions at the time, ENRC had to get special permission from UK authorities to buy out his CAMEC shares. Though the UK Treasury did not confirm the waiver was granted, ENRC acquired 100% of CAMEC.
By the end of 2013 ENRC had delisted and left London after the UK’s Serious Fraud Office opened an investigation into its business in Africa.
The platinum site in Zimbabwe was left undeveloped for more than a decade and no platinum appears to have ever been mined.
– Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
Leaked data on more than 18,000 accounts shows that the Swiss bank missed or ignored red flags.
By Jesse Drucker and Ben Hubbard
Feb. 20, 2022
The client rosters of Swiss banks are among the world’s most closely guarded secrets, protecting the identities of some of the planet’s richest people and clues into how they accumulated their fortunes.
Now, an extraordinary leak of data from Credit Suisse, one of the world’s most iconic banks, is exposing how the bank held hundreds of millions of dollars for heads of state, intelligence officials, sanctioned businessmen and human rights abusers, among many others.
A self-described whistle-blower leaked data on more than 18,000 bank accounts, collectively holding more than $100 billion, to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper shared the data with a nonprofit journalism group, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and 46 other news organizations around the world, including The New York Times.
The data covers accounts that were open from the 1940s until well into the 2010s but do not cover the bank’s current operations.
Among the people listed as holding amounts worth millions of dollars in Credit Suisse accounts were King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two sons of the former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. Other account holders included sons of a Pakistani intelligence chief who helped funnel billions of dollars from the United States and other countries to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Venezuelan officials ensnared in a long-running corruption scandal.
The leak shows that Credit Suisse opened accounts for and continued to serve not only the ultrawealthy but also people whose problematic backgrounds would have been obvious to anyone who ran their names through a search engine.
Swiss banks have long faced legal prohibitions on taking money linked to criminal activity, said Daniel Thelesklaf, the former head of Switzerland’s anti-money laundering agency. But, he said, the law generally hasn’t been enforced.
Candice Sun, a spokeswoman for the bank, said in a statement that “Credit Suisse strongly rejects the allegations and inferences about the bank’s purported business practices.” She said many of the accounts in the leak date back decades to “a time where laws, practices and expectations of financial institutions were very different from where they are now.”
Ms. Sun said that while Credit Suisse can’t comment on specific clients, many of the accounts identified in the leaked database have already been closed. “Of the remaining active accounts, we are comfortable that appropriate due diligence, reviews and other control related steps were taken, including pending account closures,” she said.
Ms. Sun added that the leak appears to be part of “a concerted effort to discredit the bank and the Swiss financial marketplace, which has undergone significant changes over the last several years.”
The leak follows the so-called Panama Papers in 2016, the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Pandora Papers last year. They all shed light on the secretive workings of banks, law firms and offshore financial-services providers that allow wealthy people and institutions — including those accused of crimes — to move huge sums of money, largely outside the purview of tax collectors or law enforcement.
The new disclosures are likely to intensify legal and political scrutiny of the Swiss banking industry and, in particular, Credit Suisse. The bank is already reeling from the abrupt ousters of its two top executives.
With its ironclad bank-secrecy laws, Switzerland has long been a haven for people who are looking to hide money. In the past decade, that has made the country’s largest banks — especially its two giants, Credit Suisse and UBS — a target for the authorities in the United States and elsewhere who are trying to crack down on tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes.
In 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to conspiring to help Americans file false tax returns and agreed to pay fines, penalties and restitution totaling $2.6 billion.
Three years later, the bank paid the Justice Department $5.3 billion to settle allegations about its marketing of mortgage-backed securities. Last fall, it agreed to pay $475 million to U.S. and British authorities to resolve an investigation into a kickback and bribery scheme in Mozambique. And this month, a trial got underway in Switzerland in which Credit Suisse is accused of allowing drug traffickers to launder millions of euros through the bank.
The Justice Department and the Senate Finance Committee are also looking into whether U.S. citizens continue to hold undeclared accounts at the bank.
Several former Credit Suisse employees told federal prosecutors late last year that the bank continued to hide hundreds of millions of dollars for clients long after its 2014 guilty plea, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed last year by a former bank official and a lawyer for other former employees. (The suit was dismissed after the Justice Department said it “threatens to interfere with ongoing discussions with Credit Suisse” about dealing with Swiss bank accounts held by U.S. citizens.)
The media consortium has nicknamed the latest leak “Suisse Secrets.” Of the more than 18,000 bank accounts involved, roughly 100 U.S. citizens held accounts, but none are public figures.
Among the biggest revelations is that Credit Suisse continued to do business with customers even after bank officials flagged suspicious activity involving their finances.
One account holder was Venezuela’s former vice minister of energy, Nervis Villalobos.
Employees in Credit Suisse’s compliance department had reason to be wary of doing business with him. The bank had a 2008 report by an outside due-diligence firm detailing corruption allegations involving Mr. Villalobos and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, according to a Spanish police report obtained by the media consortium. (The Times reviewed the report.)
Credit Suisse nonetheless opened an account for him in 2011, the leaked bank data shows. The account, which was closed in 2013, held as much as $10 million.
Lawyers for Mr. Villalobos, who was criminally charged by the Justice Department in 2017, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
All told, there were 25 Credit Suisse accounts, containing a total of about $270 million, that belonged to people accused of being involved in a wide-ranging conspiracy surrounding Venezuela’s oil company. The accounts remained open after the scandal started to become public, but were closed by the time criminal charges were filed.
The bank also kept accounts open for a Zimbabwean businessman who was sanctioned by U.S. and European authorities for his ties to the government of the country’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe. The accounts stayed open for several months after the sanctions were imposed.
The leaked bank information included many accounts linked to government officials across the Middle East and beyond. The data raises questions about how public officials and their relatives accumulated vast fortunes in a region rife with corruption.
Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, sons of former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, stood trial in Cairo in 2020 on charges of illicit share trading.
The sons of former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, held a total of six accounts at various points, including one in 2003 that was worth $196 million.
In a statement to The New York Times, the Mubaraks’ lawyers declined to comment about specific accounts but said the suggestion that any of the Mubaraks’ assets had been “tainted by any illegality or a result of any favoritism or use of influence” would be “both unfounded and defamatory.”
Any assets they held, the statement said, were from their “successful professional business activities.”
King Abdullah II of Jordan, one of the few officials in the leaks who remains in power, had six accounts, including one whose balance exceeded $224 million.
Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court said in a statement that there had been no “unlawful or improper conduct” in relation to the bank accounts. They held portions of the king’s private wealth, which was used for personal expenses, royal projects to help Jordanians and the maintenance of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, of which he is the custodian.
Senior intelligence officials and their offspring from several countries that cooperated with the United States in the war on terrorism also had money stashed at Credit Suisse.
As the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan helped funnel billions of dollars in cash and other aid from the United States and other countries to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to support their fight against the Soviet Union.
In 1985, the same year President Ronald Reagan called for more oversight of the aid going into Afghanistan, an account was opened in the name of three of General Khan’s sons. (The general never faced charges of stealing aid money.) Years later, the account would grow to hold $3.7 million, the leaked records show.
Two of the general’s sons, Akbar and Haroon Khan, did not respond to requests for comment from the reporting project. In a text message, a third son, Ghazi Khan, called information about the accounts “not correct,” adding, “The content is conjectural.”
In 2003, the year that the United States invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, Saad Kheir, the head of Jordan’s intelligence agency, opened an account that would eventually hold $21.6 million.
The account was closed after Mr. Kheir’s death in 2009.
The family of Mr. Mubarak’s long-serving and brutal spymaster, Omar Suleiman, had an account, too. Mr. Suleiman died in 2012. Efforts by the reporting project to reach his family were unsuccessful.
The leaked records were provided to Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung more than a year ago by an unidentified whistle-blower. Of the dozens of news organizations collaborating on the project, none were based in Switzerland, where a 2015 law restricted journalists from writing articles based on internal bank data.
The whistle-blower said in a statement to the media consortium that Swiss bank-secrecy laws were “immoral.”
“The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders,” the whistle-blower said.
Katie Benner contributed reporting and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Jesse Drucker is an investigative reporter for the Business desk. He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News where he won a pair of awards in 2011 for investigative and explanatory reporting from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for a series on how U.S. multinationals shift profits into tax havens. @JesseDrucker
Ben Hubbard is the Beirut bureau chief. He has spent more than a dozen years in the Arab world, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. He is the author of “MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman.” @NYTBen
Bank of Spies: Credit Suisse catered to global intelligence figures
During the global War on Terror, international strategy relied on intelligence officials from regimes accused of corruption and torture. A number of these spies, and their families, have held large sums at Credit Suisse.
False Spring: Credit Suisse had deep ties to Arab elite on eve of historic uprisings
The Arab Spring drew enormous scrutiny to the wealth Arab elites had stashed abroad. A leak of bank data reveals how figures linked to regimes in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere held hundreds of millions at Credit Suisse before and after the uprising
REFERENCES:
[1] Also reported in media: https://www.lematin.ch/story/les-300-millions-des-freres-moubarak-sont-chez-credit-suisse-213323286253
[2] Calculation based on adding the highest max balance from key individuals in the 10 years before the Arab Spring:
Mubarak brothers 277-million CHF in 2003
Hussein Salem 104-million CHF in 2003
Mahmoud Yehia El-Gammal 19-million CHF in 2008
Rasikh 3-million CHF in 2006
King Abdullah 230 million CHF in TKTK
Khaddam 90-million in 2003
Qaboos 177-million in TKTK
Add in Libyans, Bidh, Mansour, Mallawany, Bouteflika, Allawi, spy accounts, should be well over $1bln at exchange rate
[3] The proofs for this will be included in the separate story on Hussein Salem https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CVVQWCp44dAg0prQUtCvhpzHJhl7bqgmxDZwV6IEIKI/edit
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2016/04/04/panama-papers-the-middle-east-players/
[5] https://arij.net/investigations/panadora-papers-en/
[6] See sections on Iraqi National Accord: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ayad-Allawi#ref1048902
[7] 025101982249 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TnyC6z2QpppgOnE0GuBUOXck7VQYRRJ8/view?usp=sharing
(DOB of March 2, 1937 matches with Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abdelaziz-Bouteflika)
Shared with Zhor Bouteflika, Latifa Bouteflika, Abdelrahim Nasser Bouteflika, Abdelghani Bouteflika, Mustapha Bouteflika, Said Bouteflika.
[8] https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/196976?ln=en
[9] See this story for proofs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tjEHptDZXKRH-sQUFHDvXHBlvwVZEAah/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101116988624368989844&rtpof=true&sd=true
[10] Many of the sanctions/freeze lists confirm she’s his wife, for instance: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62019CJ0072&rid=8
[11] 083505893964 - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Wo7fOMq2B7_-iO6bYJHceOEnd-eBPmb8
[12] https://www.egyptindependent.com/alaa-mubarak-owns-over-le49-million-worth-shares-palm-hills/
[13] https://www.shorouknews.com//news/view.aspx?cdate=01072012&id=65319d45-a53e-4e2d-ad09-183b2d132c0b
Also a brief summary in English: https://english.mubasher.info/news/2110139/PHD-s-Mansour-cleared-in-state-land-sale-case-Pharos/ and a mention on page 11 here: https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/research_papers/2013_RP08_rll.pdf
[14] Widely reported for instance here: https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/3/7402/Business/Egypts-Mansour-brothers-debut-on-Forbes-list,-as-o.aspx
here: https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2011-05-01/hsbc-under-fire-over-its-role-in-controversial-egyptian-land-deals
here: https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/41490
[15] More detail on his convictions and wife’s Swiss bank accounts here: https://en.arij.net/investigation/the-ministers-wife/
[16] https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/former-egyptian-housing-minister-in-corruption-trial-1.423280
[17] Page 3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zbi8pRB2Vf8llx2ht3Qan0qmzcJlxv8k/view?usp=sharing “These increases can be attributed not only to political events primarily in the Middle East and North Africa, but also to a significant increase in the number of SARs submitted by money transmitters.” and “There was also an increase in SARs involving money laundering: this category comprises cases that cannot be classified under a specific form of crime, but that suggest acts of money laundering due to the modus operandi involved. As a result of political events in several countries (especially across the Middle East and North Africa), the number of SARs involving suspected bribery increased significantly, too.“
[18] Page 5: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XKnnmWanqTi_zScVIRActMz1tfXbAtoj/view?usp=sharing
[19] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190110-the-unknown-fate-of-ill-gotten-egyptian-money-in-the-british-virgin-islands/
[20] Media reports covering this: https://www.madamasr.com/en/2017/09/07/news/u/switzerland-halts-mutual-legal-assistance-with-egypt-in-mubarak-family-funds-case/ and here https://www.aa.com.tr/fr/afrique/la-suisse-annonce-la-cl%C3%B4ture-des-proc%C3%A9dures-d-entraide-judiciaire-avec-l-egypte-/902992
And page 16 here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aGgN3f3U1a7rh8QIdTTwR9fLvayjO9JK/view?usp=sharing
[21] https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/1233/437962/Egypt/Courts--Law/Court-issues-final-ruling-canceling-asset-freeze-o.aspx
[22] Page 5: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lB3QMd1Jc9FxlSPOhDnNl9bMQv8RgRX4
