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Is the UN’s maritime organisation facilitating crimes at sea?

Tens of thousands of refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea each year are captured by the EU-funded Libyan Coast Guard and sent to brutal prisons in Libya where murder, extortion and rape are common.

Bangladeshi migrants making their way from Libya to Europe are rescued by the crew of the Geo Barents, a rescue vessel operated by Doctors Without Borders in the Central Mediterranean on 12 June 12, 2021. (Ed Ou / The Outlaw Ocean Project)

By Ian Urbina and Joe Galvin
20 Feb 2022 0

One of the reasons that the coast guard has become so effective in this effort is that in 2018, Libya expanded the reach of its offshore patrols. In receiving UN recognition of an at-sea search-and-rescue zone, Libyan authorities stretched their jurisdiction nearly a hundred miles off of Libya’s coast, far into international waters, and halfway to Italian shores.

The consequence of this expanded zone is that humanitarian boats like those from Doctors Without Borders are prevented from getting to the migrants first to pull them out of the water and then to deliver them to ports of safety, typically in Europe. Instead, with help from EU-funded planes and drones flying above the migrant boats, the Libyan Coast Guard gets to these refugees faster, returning them to prisons in Libya, the country the migrants just fled.

The Libyan Search-and-Rescue Zone (Photo: International Maritime Organization)

Lawmakers and humanitarian advocates are now posing tough new questions to the European Parliament and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which is the UN’s maritime agency that formally acknowledged the Libyan search-and-rescue zone. These critics say that the Libyan search-and-rescue zone violates the relevant UN convention and has been used to facilitate a worsening of human rights abuses and violation of the law of non-refoulement, which prohibits the return of people to war zones or other places where they are likely to be tortured or otherwise harmed.

“Are there plans to take the initiative of suspending registration of the Libyan ‘Search-and-Rescue Zone’ at the International Maritime Organization, as it complies neither with international standards nor with individual states’ obligations to respect the right to asylum and the law of the sea?” a group of 18 European lawmakers wrote in May 2021 to the European Parliament.

Under a 1979 UN convention, nations can create their own at-sea search-and-rescue zones, but certain obligations need to be met. For a country to create or expand a search-and-rescue zone it must first “establish rescue coordination centres” that are “operational on a 24-hour basis and constantly staffed by trained personnel having a working knowledge of the English language”. People rescued in the zones must only ever be returned to a port of safety, according to convention rules.

When the IMO acknowledged Libya’s search-and-rescue zone in 2018, these obligations were not met. Libya had no independent rescue coordination centre, staffed 24-hours a day with English-speaking staff, and the country’s ports were not (and are still not) categorised as “places of safety”, according to the United Nations. When migrants are “rescued” or arrested in Libya’s search-and-rescue zone, the coast guard takes them to prisons where the UN has said “crimes against humanity” are happening.

The IMO was by no means the primary architect of the expanded Libyan search-and-rescue zone. That responsibility belongs to the EU and Italy, both of which pushed for its creation while also making clear that the core requirements of the convention were not being met.

In 2016, the Italian Coast Guard was asked by the European Commission to support Libyan authorities in identifying and declaring this zone. In a submission in 2017 to the IMO, Italy made clear that Libya had no rescue coordination centre, instead promising that one would be created. The years passed, and no such centre was built. In 2021, responding to questions in the European Parliament, the European Commission continued to speak of its aspirations to build a “functional rescue coordination centre,” and an internal EU report from January 2022 makes clear the centre is still unable to meet its basic obligations.



Before the IMO announced it, no Libyan search-and-rescue zone officially existed. Italy and independent humanitarian groups predominantly handled the job of tracking migrant boats on the Mediterranean Sea. But the new search-and-rescue zone empowered the Libyan Coast Guard to order ships – whether merchant cargo vessels or humanitarian rescue vessels – to return refugees to the very country they just fled. This raised several legal questions: How can ships be ordered to deliver refugees to ports deemed unsafe? Why would the IMO announce a zone that facilitates such legal violations and fails to meet the conditions of the convention that the IMO is meant to uphold?

“There is the law on one side and the policies in place which are in contradiction,” said Laura Garel, a spokeswoman for SOS Méditerranée, a humanitarian group that operates rescue ships on the Mediterranean.

It is not just in the Mediterranean that this contradiction exists. In a study published in 2017, Professor Violeta Moreno-Lax, a specialist in international migration law, documented how Australia had consistently failed to meet its obligations under the 1979 convention relating to search-and-rescue zones. The study outlines how Australia militarised its response to seaborne migration, focusing on “deterrence, interception and forcible turnbacks of boats” instead of conducting “genuine search-and-rescue missions”, putting it in regular breach of the convention.

In response, the IMO says it has minimal power or responsibility to sanction at-sea search-and-rescue zones. The organisation “does not approve search-and-rescue zones” but merely “disseminates the information”, Natasha Brown, an IMO spokeswoman, wrote to The Outlaw Ocean Project by email. “There is no provision in the search-and-rescue Convention for us to assess or approve the information provided,” she added.

However, the IMO clearly plays some role in deciding whether to announce and recognise these zones. In December 2017, for instance, Libya provisionally withdrew its initial IMO application to determine its zone, “after an implication from the IMO that in the absence of a rescue coordination centre core requirements for the SAR zone were not met,” wrote Peter Muller and Peter Smolinski in the Journal of European Public Policy.

Asked whether for the sake of safeguarding its own reputation and ensuring the convention is not violated, the IMO vets any of the information it receives from countries to verify that the criteria of the convention are met, Brown, the IMO spokeswoman, confirmed that her organisation does “clarify or confirm technical points” before formally announcing a search-and-rescue zone. She added that the convention would need to be amended for the IMO to take a greater role in verifying the information it releases.

In the past, the IMO has taken issue with the organisation or its rules being used in a way that facilitates crimes. In 2015, Koji Sekimizu, the secretary-general of the IMO at the time, made clear that his organisation must help prevent migrants from being sent to ports that are deemed unsafe. During a meeting about migration across the Mediterranean, he emphasised that signatory governments were obliged to coordinate and cooperate with rescue vessels to ensure people rescued at sea were returned to a place of safety.

“These obligations apply regardless of the status of the persons in distress at sea, including potentially illegal migrants,” Sekimuzu said. “These issues are clearly a matter for the International Maritime Organization if they call into question the proper application of international regulations.”

A wide variety of scholars, lawyers, advocates and lawmakers say this is exactly what’s happening: the IMO is enabling the improper “application of international regulations” as well as violations of humanitarian and maritime law. The IMO has the authority and duty to fix the problem by delisting the Libyan search-and-rescue zone, they say, which would prevent IMO complicity in the Libyan Coast Guard claiming extended jurisdiction in the illegal delivery of migrants to places of abuse.

“It is urgent for the IMO, as the UN maritime authority, to remove the Libyan search-and-rescue zone from official records,” said a 2020 letter signed by dozens of EU lawmakers, aid organisations, activists, legal experts and academics. The letter explained that the IMO has created a system that “has been used opportunistically to create a fictional account that allows several states, and the EU, to relinquish their duties under the law of the sea, international, refugee and human rights law.” The letter cites Libya’s status as an unsafe port and the violence committed by the Libyan Coast Guard. It also describes the use of Libya’s expanded search-and-rescue zone to “criminalise” aid groups like Doctors Without Borders that are engaging in legal rescue missions.

“Because we believe that the IMO does not appreciate states using its procedures instrumentally to undermine the law of the sea, maritime safety, human rights and international law, the undersigned ask that formal recognition of the Libyan search-and-rescue zone be revoked,” the letter said. In response to the letter, the IMO wrote that it was “not authorised to remove or deregister” the zone.

Such pressure on the IMO is not just coming from outside the UN. In a 2019 report, the IMO’s sister organisation, the United Nations Human Rights Office, also called on the maritime organisation to take responsibility for its role in facilitating violations by the Libyan Coast Guard. The IMO “should reconsider the classification of the Libyan search-and-rescue zone until such time as the Libya Coast Guard demonstrates it is capable of conducting search-and-rescue operations without putting migrants’ lives and safety at risk,” the UN human rights office wrote.

Since the creation of the Libyan search-and-rescue zone, the Libyan Coast Guard has become far more effective at capturing migrants. In 2021, the Libyan Coast Guard arrested more than 32,000 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean, up from 11,891 arrested at sea in 2020, according to the UN’s migration agency. These migrants are brought to shore and put in migrant prisons, where myriad abuses occur.

“There are videos of the concentration camps in Libya, the concentration camps of traffickers,” Pope Francis said in a recent television interview, describing as “criminal” the treatment of the refugees crossing the Mediterranean and calling on EU countries to accept more of these migrants.

The IMO’s acknowledgement of Libya’s search-and-rescue zone also puts private ship owners and operators in a legal bind. If the captain of a private vessel rescues migrants in international waters (as they are required by law) and that captain is then ordered by the Libyan Coast Guard to carry those migrants back to port in Tripoli, should the captain obey these orders?

Because of the IMO’s announcement of the Libyan search-and-rescue zone, Libyan Coast Guard captains can claim – as they routinely do – that they have UN-recognized jurisdiction over the area even though the migrants are typically already in international waters. As a result, merchant ship captains think they are legally required to obey orders from the Libyan Coast Guard to hand over migrants.

However, in doing so, these merchant ship captains are committing a crime, which was made apparent in 2021 by the sentencing to a year in prison of an Italian ship captain who did exactly as he had been told by the Libyan Coast Guard, carrying migrants back to Tripoli in violation of humanitarian law forbidding non-refoulement. This predicament has been created because the Libyan Coast Guard has claimed, with tacit approval from the IMO, broad jurisdiction over much of the Mediterranean Sea.

The IMO has tried to offer useful guidance on these matters to such captains but the organisation has failed to solve the legal contradiction that it helped create. The IMO advises ship captains of their legal requirement to rescue migrants at sea, instructing them to obey the orders given by the country, such as those from Libya, who claim jurisdiction over a search-and-rescue zone. But the same IMO document also says that the migrants must be taken to an officially recognised “place of safety”, which the UN has said Libya is certainly not.

To avoid further abuse of the regulations and for the IMO to play a clearer role in verifying information it publishes tied to search-and-rescue zones, countries that are party to the convention can propose amendments, which are in turn voted on at conferences convened by the IMO. A two-thirds majority of voting countries is required for the amendment to be adopted.

And there is precedence; in her 2017 study, Moreno-Lax notes that as “a result of repeated episodes of non-compliance with search-and-rescue obligations”, the search-and-rescue convention was amended to make clearer countries’ obligations to carry out rescues.

“The IMO needs to stand up to states misusing procedures for instrumental purposes, for the sake of the international legal system as a whole,” said Yasha Maccanico, a researcher from Statewatch, an organisation that monitors civil liberties in Europe. “The Libyan search-and-rescue zone makes a mockery of the law of the sea.” DM

 

A Covid pill from Merck showed more promise in reducing the risk of hospitalization in a recent study.

Merck’s antiviral Covid treatment, molnupiravir.Credit...Merck


By Vimal Patel
Feb. 19, 2022

The antiviral pill molnupiravir reduced the risk of Covid-19 hospitalization by 65 percent in a new study by Indian researchers that offered stronger results than previous research about the drug’s effectiveness.

The study, led by a researcher at the Chennai Antiviral Research and Treatment Clinical Research Site, split 1,218 Indian adults infected with the coronavirus and experiencing mild symptoms into comparably sized groups.

Only 1.5 percent of the group that received the pill required hospitalization, compared with 4.3 percent of the group that didn’t receive the pill.

A study last year by Merck, which developed the pill with the help of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, found that the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization by 30 percent.

The previous study had several differences that make comparison difficult, Dr. Eliav Barr, senior vice president of Merck Research Laboratories, said in an interview on Saturday.

Participants in the Merck study were at high risk of developing complications after a Covid-19 diagnosis, Dr. Barr said. The study also was conducted globally and included patients with both mild and moderate infections. The Indian study didn’t target patients at high risk.

Still, “there are a lot of similarities in the studies,” he said. “Both studies show reductions in hospitalization. Both studies show reduction in viral load, that is, the amount of virus you can detect in the nose, from before to after treatment. And both studies had substantial improvement in symptom resolution.”

Antiviral pills like molnupiravir and Pfizer’s Paxlovid have the potential to reach more people than the antibody treatments that are being widely used in the United States for high-risk Covid-19 patients. Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have hoped for convenient treatments that could be prescribed by any doctor and picked up at a local drugstore.

The Food and Drug Administration in December authorized molnupiravir for emergency use by certain adults who were at high risk. The drug is available by prescription only and should be started within five days of symptoms, the F.D.A. said, adding that it’s not a substitute for vaccination.

Merck’s pill works by introducing errors into the virus’s genes to stop it from replicating, which has raised concerns about the risk that it could cause reproductive harm. The risk is hypothetical, and Merck says it has not been borne out in its studies.

The F.D.A. said that women who were pregnant should generally not take the pills, but that there could be exceptions. The agency said that women who may become pregnant should use contraception while taking the pills and for at least four days after. The male partners of women who could become pregnant should use contraception while taking the pills and for at least three months after, the agency said.

Some scientists have also raised concerns that the pills could in theory cause the virus to mutate in a way that does not stop it from replicating but instead leads to the emergence of a new variant.

Demand for the Merck pill has been weak in the United States because of the low reported efficacy and the safety concerns.

Until the availability of antiviral drugs, patients who wanted treatment for Covid-19 needed to go to a facility to get an infusion or injection, Dr. Barr said.

“That’s a pretty substantive barrier to being able to get treatment,” he said. “And it’s a barrier that’s more likely to be disproportionately high in patients with the least access to health care.”

Putin-Backed Legislation Says Moscow Can Give Russian Citizenship to Those in Areas It May Extend Russian Borders to Include, Zhelenin Says

Paul Goble

Sunday, February 20, 2022

            Staunton  – If the leader of any other country proposed new citizenship legislation that would give his government the power to award national citizenship to anyone living in areas his or her country might occupy in the future, there would be international outrage at this indication of plans for further aggression and annexation.

            But that is precisely what Vladimir Putin has done in draft legislation he has sent to the Duma for passage, legislation that because of his powers almost certainly will be adopted without change; and there has not been any expression of outrage by other powers despite the arrogance of such an announcement.

            Unfortunately, as Rosbalt’s Aleksandr Zhelenin points out, the new draft law contains other features which reflect “radical changes in the foreign and domestic policies” of the Kremlin leader in the 20 years since the last citizenship law was passed. (The 2002 act has been amended and those amendments anticipate the claim Putin is now making.)

            (For the text of the 80-plus-page bill, see https://sozd.duma.gov.ru/bill/49269-8; for Zhelenin’s analysis, rosbalt.ru/blogs/2021/12/31/1938115.html).

            The Rosbalt analyst says that “first of all,” everyone should pay attention to two paragraphs of the new legislation, no. 12 and no. 20, which talk about “the possible changes of the borders of the Russian Federation in the future and corresponding to that the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship by people living on territory that has been annexed.

            This underscores, Zhelenin continues, that “the Russian state not only as a matter of principle has not rejected the course of external expansion but is preserving for itself the legal basis for such actions in the future.” The only thing one can’t say with any certainty is just which territories now part of other states or having their own statehood now would be involved.

            Among the other disturbing features of the new law which will go into effect six months after it is adopted is the following one: it reverses Russian commitments of the past never to strip anyone of Russian citizenship, something the West insisted on in the 1990s because the Soviet government had so often used this device against dissenters.

            The draft law does say that anyone who has Russian citizenship by birth cannot lose it by government action; but it goes on to say, Zhelenin points out, that anyone who acquires Russian citizenship and then violates certain Russian laws is at risk of precisely that outcome, thus creating two classes of citizens in the Russian Federation.

            According to Zhelenin, this action will help the powers that be in Moscow ensure that those people who do acquire Russian citizenship are as obedient and loyal to the Kremlin as possible. But that raises a question which the author of this legislation has not yet bothered to answer.

            “If you so distrust new citizens, why then are you handing out hundreds of thousands of Russian passports in Ukraine and Moldova?” For the moment at least, the Rosbalt commentator says, “this question is hanging in the air.”

'Get off your knees, charlatan': Franklin Graham's 'Pray for President Putin' plea sets off wave of criticism

Tom Boggioni
February 20, 2022

Donald Trump and Franklin Graham (Twitter)

A tweet from Christian Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, calling for his followers to "Pray for President Putin today," and not the people of Ukraine who are living in fear they will be invaded by Russia has set off a wave of criticism on Twitter.

According to Graham, who is a notable supporter of former president Donald Trump who has his own cozy relationship with the former KGB head, "This may sound like a strange request, but we need to pray that God would work in his heart so that war could be avoided at all cost. May God give wisdom to the leaders involved in these talks & negotiations, as well as those advising them."

Commenters were quick to point out he didn't ask for prayers for President Joe Biden by name as the United States attempts to intervene and stop what could be a devastating war in the region.

As one commenter pointed out, "Putin literally blew up a passenger airliner and mercilessly murdered 298 people."

Another added, "A fine day to grovel to your overlord$ eh? Get off your knees, charlatan."

You can see some more responses below.

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Starbucks Seattle Staff to Vote on Union, Labor Board Orders

Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg News

A barista pours milk in a coffee order at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 9, 2017. China is Starbucks Corp.'s biggest growth opportunity, and its expansion there could last decades without letting up. Though the U.S. will remain a key market, the company's crusade to spread lattes and macchiatos across the Asian nation is key to its future , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Starbucks Corp. workers in Seattle will vote on unionization, the U.S. labor board ruled, giving the union that recently won landmark New York elections a chance to expand its new foothold to the coffee giant’s hometown.

Employees at a Seattle store will be mailed ballots Feb. 25, the National Labor Relations Board’s Seattle regional director ordered Friday, joining his counterparts in New York and Arizona in rejecting the company’s arguments that store-by-store unionization votes are inappropriate. The union, Workers United, is now petitioning to represent workers at around 100 locations across the U.S.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Corals show rising sea levels in Singapore 'very likely' due to climate change

The coral microatolls at Mapur island in Indonesia can provide a good gauge of Singapore's sea-level history over the past century.

 PHOTO: JEDRZEJ MAJEWSKI

Cheryl Tan

SINGAPORE - Corals can provide a good gauge of Singapore's sea-level history over the past century, with the rising levels recorded over the 20th and 21st century very likely a result of climate change.

While this can be attributed to multiple factors such as sinking land, findings from a Nanyang Technological University (NTU) study show that climate change contributed to rising sea levels in the country, which had gone up by 14cm since pre-1970 levels.

Dr Jedrzej Majewski from the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) at NTU, who is the lead author of the study, said that as the rate of sea-level rise over the last 100 years was lower compared with the global average, taking away anthropogenic factors would mean that sea level in the country could have been stable, or even "slightly falling", likely due to Singapore's geological history.

Anthropogenic factors refer to human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels and cutting down of forests.

In addition, taking into account the recent report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), some 70 per cent of the combined change in glaciers, ice sheet surface mass balance and thermal expansion since 1970 can be attributed to human activity - with this percentage increasing over the course of the 20th and 21st century, he noted.

The latest report from IPCC has found that Singapore will face a sea-level rise of about 0.2m by 2050, and 1m by 2100, relative to a baseline from the period of 1995 to 2014.

This discovery was made possible only through the use of coral microatolls - circular colonies of coral which usually grow sideways - from Mapur, an Indonesian island about 100km south-east of Singapore.

Dr Majewski added that the corals there can provide a good gauge of Singapore's sea level history over the past century.

The top surface of the coral microatoll is usually made of dead tissue due to exposure to air, while living tissue is found growing along its perimeter, forming growth rings similar to the ones found on tree trunks.

These rings, therefore, make these coral microatolls natural recorders of sea-level change, and scientists can trace these changes by counting backwards from the outer age where the living tissue is, to determine the age of any part of the coral.

Assistant Professor Aron Meltzner from EOS, who co-led the study, noted that tide gauge records from Tanjong Pagar on Singapore's sea levels went back only to 1989, whereas the first data point recorded on the coral microatoll dated back to 1915.

"Between 1915 and 1990, sea-level rise in Singapore was slower than the global average, and sea level was essentially stable.

"However, before this study, we could only extrapolate the probable sea level in Singapore from a global average and the more recent tide gauge records. This left quite a bit of uncertainty about how high sea level was and how it changed over the period," said Prof Meltzner.

Dr Majewski said the microatolls allowed researchers to narrow down the uncertainty of probable sea levels in Singapore by over 40 per cent for earlier periods, and about 30 per cent for the more recent period of time.

Likening sea-level data to investing in the stock market, if one looks only at the past two weeks of historical data and notes that a share had fallen by 10 per cent or 15 per cent, one might think that investment would be a "terrible idea", he added.

"However, if you extend the data to maybe a month, perhaps you would then see that the stock price had risen, and then fallen down. And if you extend the time period to 50 years, you'll see that the recent period is a tiny, tiny little blip in over 30 years of growth," said Dr Majewski.

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The same can be extrapolated to sea levels. With current data that stretches only to the 1990s, the team is able to see only a small part of the big picture, while longer-term data provides a fuller picture, he added.

"This background will be incorporated into future models, allowing experts to be more precise with their predictions of future sea levels, and for those in Singapore to have a better understanding of how the regional sea-level change may differ from the global average," he said.

Dr Majewski pointed out that the youngest coral microatoll records were cross-referenced with tide gauges in Tanjong Pagar from 1989, thereby validating their potential use in reconstructing sea-level change in South-east Asia, as he noted the lack of data for the region as a whole in the latest IPCC report.

"There are a lot of places which didn't have any tide gauges installed until maybe the 1980s or the 1990s, or still don't have any tide gauges presently. So if they had any corals growing, and if we found the right ones, we can actually reconstruct the sea-level change over the past 100 or 200 years," said Dr Majewski.

Prof Meltzner said the team is currently studying the microatolls in the Southern Islands, with plans to conduct similar studies in other sites in Indonesia and Malaysia.

These can give more robust data on how sea-level rise may have a varied impact on different parts of Singapore, given how different areas may have had varying sea-level histories.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

UPDATED

Leak gives details on more than 30,000 Credit Suisse bank clients

SUN, 20 FEB, 2022 - 21:00

ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER

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)

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Credit Suisse financed Zimbabwe fraudster in deal that saved Mugabe

Suisse Secrets leak casts new light on bank’s role in mine sale that helped finance violence around 2008 election

20 February 2022 - 

BY JAMES O’BRIEN/OCCRP AND JAMES O’BRIEN/OCCRP

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER 

Former anti-Robert Mugabe politician Roy Bennett

said the 2008 election violence was directly linked to the $100m.

Image: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

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.

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“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.

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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

Vast Leak Exposes How Credit Suisse Served Strongmen and Spies

Leaked data on more than 18,000 accounts shows that the Swiss bank missed or ignored red flags.

Credit Suisse’s headquarters in Zurich.

Credit...Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg


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.

Leaked documents show that King Abdullah II of Jordan was one of Credit Suisse’s clients.

Credit...Pool photo by Justin Lane

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.

Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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.”

Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s once-powerful intelligence chief, in Cairo in 2012.

Credit...Khaled Elfiqi/European Pressphoto Agency

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.

20 February 2022 - 19:43BY OCCRP, DARAJ, SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG AND NDR

The logo of Swiss bank Credit Suisse is seen at a branch office in Zurich, Switzerland. File Photo
Image: REUTERS/Arnd WIegmann

In the 2008 spy movie Body of Lies, the fictional character Hani Salaam helped CIA agents portrayed by Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio to catch terrorists. What cinema-goers may not have realized was that the Salaam character was based on a real person: a Jordanian spymaster named Sa’ad Kheir.    

Kheir headed Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID) between 2000 and 2005, acting as a key US ally in the War on Terror. But though lionised in theaters as a stylish hero helping the US, Kheir’s real-life activities were more morally questionable. As well as allegedly profiting from illicit oil trading, he oversaw Jordan’s role in America’s extraordinary rendition program, running an agency accused of torturing prisoners and overseeing kangaroo courts.

In 2003, he opened a personal account at Credit Suisse. Over the next seven years, the account would grow to 28.3-million Swiss francs ($21.5m) at its peak, before being closed months after his death in late 2009. 

Kheir was not the only spy who stashed large sums of money at Credit Suisse. Journalists found that 15 leading intelligence figures from around the world, or their close family members, were clients of the bank.

The revelations come from a huge trove of leaked Credit Suisse banking data containing client information from the 1940s until well into the last decade.

Most of the 15 were top-tier spy chiefs in their country. The data also held a number of other spies that OCCRP has chosen not to name, because their identities could not be verified beyond absolute doubt.

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Along with Kheir, the careers of three of these spy chiefs have common threads that make them stand out: Egypt’s Omar Suleiman, Pakistan’s General Akhtar Abdur Rahman and Yemen’s Ghaleb Al-Qamish. 

All four ran state intelligence agencies where they controlled large black budgets that were above parliamentary and executive scrutiny. All of these figures or their family members also held personal accounts at Credit Suisse worth large sums of money, without obvious sources of personal income that could explain the wealth. 

All four had roles in key US interventions in the Middle East and Afghanistan, from the CIA’s early attempts to back anti-Soviet mujahideen in the late 1970s, to the first Gulf War in 1990, to the so-called “forever wars” launched in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.  

Three of the figures, Qamish, Suleiman and Kheir, were in charge of agencies that were well known for being involved in torture. At least eight of their family members also had Credit Suisse accounts. 

Since these intelligence officials would be considered “politically exposed persons,” their accounts should have been carefully scrutinised and should have raised questions for Credit Suisse. According to Swiss compliance expert Monika Roth, secret service agents are considered by banks to be particularly sensitive customers.

"I wouldn't take them as clients — that is far too risky," Roth said, adding that intelligence chiefs are often "people with a great deal of power, questionable connections and very opaque sources of money."

One former Credit Suisse executive told OCCRP: “In the example of an intelligence chief like Saad Kheir, opening an account is a red flag and many banks in Switzerland would not take it, but Credit Suisse would.” 

It is not clear what, if any, due diligence processes were carried out. Credit Suisse declined to comment on individual cases, citing Swiss banking laws that prohibit banks from identifying or providing information on clients. 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.” 

Akhtar Abdur Rahman and the Secret Cash Flows 

Long before Kheir was building his account at Credit Suisse, secretive officials who helped America fight a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan made their own connections to the institution. 

In the late 1970s, the US backed seven different factions of Islamist fighters called the mujahideen who were battling Russia’s presence in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia matched US funding to the jihadists dollar for dollar, often sending the money to the CIA’s Swiss bank account. The end recipient in the process was Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence group (ISI), led by General Akhtar Abdur Rahman.

By the mid-1980s, Akhtar was adept at getting CIA cash into the hands of Afghan jihadists. It was around this time that Credit Suisse accounts were opened in the names of his three sons. As Mohammad Yousaf, a colleague of Akhtar’s at the ISI who later penned a book about the time, wrote: “The combined [U.S. and Saudi] funds, running into several hundred million dollars a year, were transferred by the CIA to special accounts in Pakistan under the control of ISI.” 

Both Yousaf and Steve Coll — author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 book Ghost Wars — claim Akhtar was the man who decided where this cash went next. To train the mujahideen in sophisticated weaponry, the CIA trusted him with millions. By 1984, the CIA’s Afghanistan budget alone was some $200m. 

Oversight was chronically lax, and Akhtar’s role has long been questioned.

One South Asian intelligence source with knowledge of Afghanistan operations told OCCRP: “It was easy at that point in time to open Swiss banking accounts of any manner or type for transfer of overt funds.” 

“Akhtar was doing it to fill his own pockets,” the source said. “A lot of money was siphoned off from the Afghan war and into his bank accounts.”

One of the two Akhtar family accounts at Credit Suisse  — held jointly by Akhtar’s sons Akbar, Ghazi, and Haroon — was opened on July 1, 1985, when the sons were in their late 20s and early 30s. That same year, US President Ronald Reagan would raise concerns about where the money intended for the mujahideen was going. By 2003, this account was worth at least 5-million Swiss francs ($3.7m). A second account, opened in January 1986 in Akbar’s name alone, was worth more than 9-million Swiss francs ($9.2m) by November 2010. 

Akhtar died in a 1988 plane crash that also claimed his boss, Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq. 

Akbar and Haroon Khan did not respond to requests for comment. In a message to OCCRP, Ghazi Khan called information presented by reporters about the family’s Swiss accounts “not correct,” and said it was “denied,” but did not elaborate. 

Ghaleb Al-Qamish: The ‘Black Box’

As the CIA and Akhtar were collaborating on Afghanistan, Yemen’s Ghaleb Al-Qamish was starting his own rise. 

By 1980, Qamish headed Yemen’s Political Security Office (PSO), which was in charge of domestic intelligence. Just as Akhtar was doing from Pakistan, Qamish recruited fighters for the Afghan war against the Soviets.

A looming figure over Yemen’s security apparatus for decades, Qamish was a key enforcer for strongman President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled from 1978 to 2012. When Al-Qaeda bombed the American destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000, Saleh tasked an initially reluctant Qamish with helping the CIA flush out the suspects.

According to three officers who worked under Qamish at Yemen’s PSO, he was the nation’s most feared security official, described as Saleh’s "black box.” The three sources, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told OCCRP that Qamish had “an open budget made up of millions of dollars” to do with as he pleased.

By the time he had become Yemen’s chief spy, helping the Americans to unravel terror cells in the early 2000s, Qamish also had inexplicable millions tucked away at Credit Suisse.

His  account, opened in 1999, the year before the Cole attack, was worth almost 5-million Swiss francs ($3.7m) by 2006, the same year that some of the Cole suspects escaped a Yemeni prison. Qamish’s monthly salary was probably between $4,000 and $5,000 a month, including allowances and bonuses, according to the former intelligence officers and official Yemeni salary law guidelines.. 

Qamish was accused of various abuses, including participating in the US extraordinary rendition program, which saw millions in CIA funds lavished on officials and other helpers in allied countries. Official documents show huge payments were made to countries that hosted black sites, and those who performed torture and interrogations. 

Ruth Blakeley of the Rendition Project, a group of UK academics who have investigated the US programme, said any new information that torture-linked intelligence figures had money secreted away should be investigated. 

“If there is evidence that senior intelligence officials were gaining financially from collusion in the rendition, detention, and interrogation program led by the CIA, then that warrants thorough investigation,” she said.

If Credit Suisse questioned the source of Qamish’s money or his fitness as a client, that did not deter the bank from dealing with him. His accounts lasted long after his involvement both in the rendition program and the repression of Yemeni political opponents. 

“Through the PSO, [Qamish] was in charge of arresting all elements that were seen as opponents of the regime of Saleh,” said one senior officer, while another added: “No one knew how the PSO money was spent.”

Qamish’s ties to Saleh frayed when the president began preparing a son to take charge of the country. Saleh also set up a new domestic intelligence unit, the National Security Bureau  in 2002, under the command of a nephew, which quickly overshadowed the PSO. Slowly, the leader began pulling the rug from under Qamish’s feet. 

Qamish removed the last of his assets from Credit Suisse — worth about 3.8-million Swiss francs ($4m)  — in January 2011, just as crowds were taking to the streets of Aden in the first sparks of the Arab Spring. Though removed from his role as PSO chief in 2014 by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had come to power after Saleh’s overthrow, he was made an ambassador, though he was not officially posted anywhere.

Nowadays, Qamish lives in Istanbul. In recent years he has taken a back seat, but his sons apparently remain active in business in Yemen, Bahrain, Brazil, and Turkey. Qamish did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Omar Suleiman: Egypt’s Feared Enforcer 

In a January 2009 diplomatic cable leaked to Wikileaks, Margaret Scobey, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said spy chief Omar Suleiman was used by the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship as an enforcer. She added that Mubarak was “not one to lose sleep” over Suleiman’s brutal methods.  

Credit Suisse did not seem overly worried about Suleiman either. Despite the fact that he was personally linked to torture by victims of the  U.S.’s rendition program, Suleiman’s family kept much of their wealth with the bank.

In February 2003, while the U.S. their father’s friends at the CIA and the Pentagon hatched plans to invade Iraq, Suleiman’s family were making preparations of their own: financial ones. That month, a Credit Suisse account in their names was opened. It would later swell by millions. 

Like Akhtar, Kheir and Qamish, Suleiman was seen as a trusted US ally.

Weeks before the Suleimans’ account was opened, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to the United Nations, outlined why President Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq urgently needed to be toppled. When Powell told the U.N. he had evidence of Iraq’s training of Al-Qaeda in chemical weaponry, the source he relied on was a victim of Suleiman’s intelligence regime: Ibn Sheikh Al-Libi.  

Al-Libi, a Libyan, had been captured in Pakistan in 2001 before being rendered by the CIA to Egypt in 2003. He would confess, Egyptian handlers told him, because “three thousand individuals had been in the chair before him,” and they had all done so. After being squashed inside a tiny box, Al-Libi would later say he told the Egyptians “what they wanted to hear.” 

Suleiman tended to get what he wanted.

As the Iraq War moved from pitched battles into a counter-insurgency, Suleiman’s family’s wealth bulged. By 2007, four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Suleiman account at Credit Suisse was worth 63-million Swiss francs, shared between Omar’s three daughters.

The Suleiman family did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The account outlived Egypt’s Mubarak dictatorship, which fell in 2011 under the weight of the Arab Spring. After Mubarak was ousted, Swiss authorities said they were freezing the assets of about a dozen figures linked to him and his government. But it seems the crackdown didn’t apply to the Suleimans. Credit Suisse continued to maintain their accounts despite multiple concerns raised elsewhere about the crimes of the patriarch. There was no evidence in the data that the account was closed down.

Besides overseeing torture, Suleiman was also involved in the agency's clandestine financial transactions. 

At Mubarak’s trial, a judge cited testimony from Suleiman and other officials that Hussein Salem — an Egyptian tycoon and known frontman for the intelligence service —  owned a variety of companies in gas and other sectors for the spy agency. The judge wrote that Suleiman had admitted that his intelligence agency set up front firms for “national security” reasons, often using Salem.

Salem was also a Credit Suisse client. He had several accounts, with one holding assets worth 105-million Swiss francs ($79.3m) by 2003. It was named in legal proceedings when investigators alleged that it had been used to pay and receive what looked like corrupt commissions to executives at FlowTex, a German company prosecuted for massive fraud.

The origin of their fortunes may never be known, but experts say cases like those of the Akhtar, Kheir, Qamish, and the Suleiman family raise questions about how intelligence leaders may have benefitted from illegality. 

“Don’t forget that Mubarak wanted his generals and intelligence chiefs to steal money,” said Robert Baer, an ex-CIA agent who served in the Middle East. “Because anybody who’s not making money in a position like that can’t be trusted. Those are the people that make coups d'etat.”

Sa’ad Kheir: Jordan’s Action Hero

Jordan’s Sa’ad Kheir was made for the big screen. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, who wrote the novel upon which the movie Body of Lies was based, described him as “brilliant but emotionally wounded.”

But the interrogations carried out by Kheir’s GID were highly illegal, according to reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch reported that the GID served as “proxy jailer” for the CIA, “holding prisoners that the CIA apparently wanted kept out of circulation,” just as Suleiman’s intelligence forces had done in Egypt. The rights group documented at least 14 prisoners the US sent to Jordanian custody for likely torture between 2001 and 2003. 

Amnesty International, citing victim testimony, reported that the GID obtained more than 100 confessions via torture, and then sent these cases to Jordan’s State Security Court, which handed out death penalties to the most unfortunate. 

Senior GID officials would later deny holding prisoners for the US, or that torture even happened. Kheir has also been stalked by rumors of corruption involving oil trades, but no charges were ever filed.  

According to Wikileaks diplomatic cables, former Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb (2000-2003) put Kheir at the heart of oil deals involving Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. 

“Kheir, along with then-Prime Minister Abul Ragheb, institutionalised high-level corruption that continues to haunt Jordan today,” a Jordanian politician told OCCRP.  

Kheir’s run, however, would eventually come to an end. In May 2005, he was removed from his GID post by King Abdullah. Kheir died at a luxury hotel in Vienna in December of 2009. 

Three years earlier, his account at the bank was worth 28.3-million Swiss francs. A Credit Suisse account opened in 2006 by Kheir’s brother Saeed, a ground engineer for King Hussein’s two private jets, was worth 13-million Swiss francs by 2011, before being closed in 2014. Kheir’s wife at the time of his death, Janiche Frayeh, had her own account that was worth 6-million Swiss francs ($5.9m)  in 2010. Her account also closed in 2014.

Saeed Kheir told OCCRP that given his brother Sa’ad’s sensitive position, “it should not surprise you that he never shared any information with me about his work in intelligence.” He said he knew nothing of any Credit Suisse account set up by his brother, and that he himself never set up any accounts. He said all his taxable income “has been declared to the tax authority in Jordan.” He said he never shared a bank account with, or received funds from, his brother.

In a message to OCCRP, Frayeh said questions about the family accounts at Credit Suisse were “weird and strange and outrageous.”

She described Kheir as “an honourable man who fought terrorism all his life so people like myself and your group can live safely in this life.” She said she had not opened a Credit Suisse account, had “no idea” about any funds there, and was merely a “house wife.”  

‘Something Very Precious’ 

For intelligence figures, working with Credit Suisse offered a service that was hard to find in an increasingly globalised world.

“These banks represent something that for the intelligence community is very precious: secrecy,” said one European intelligence officer on condition of anonymity. “This confidentiality makes their services very useful for covert operations.”

A former German intelligence director in the Middle East told OCCRP and partners he was not surprised that high-ranking secret service employees from undemocratic countries would bank in Switzerland. Such accounts can serve as a back-up, the source suggested, set aside in the event that the regimes these spies serve are overthrown, or they themselves fall out of favour. 

This hypothesis was echoed by Baer, the ex-CIA agent. 

“In the Arab world, you’re only in your job for so long,” said Baer. “You and your clan have to steal what you can and create a nest egg. Switzerland is the safest place, once you’ve got your accounts set up.” 

Losing favour, it seems, is one of the main hazards of the spy world. After the fall of Mubarak in 2011, Suleiman threw his hat into the ring to lead Egypt, but was disqualified as a candidate. He died at the Cleveland Clinic months later, in July 2012, of natural causes. 

Beyond navigating internal power struggles, spies also have practical problems that Swiss banking may have helped solve. 

“Spy agencies and terrorist organisations sometimes work in the same way,” said ex-Mossad officer Avner Avraham. “They have the same problems. They have to transfer money from point A to point B, to pay someone, and they don’t want anyone to know who’s the one paying and how it’s being transferred, or where it’s coming from.”

Graham Barrow, a U.K.-based financial crime expert, said the enormous sums involved in Credit Suisse accounts connected to intelligence figures should have raised red flags for the bank.

“There’s no reason why a senior intelligence operative can’t open a bank account, but they’ve got to give a reason why they want that account and what they’re going to use it for,” he said. “Then the account has got to be used in the way they said they were going to use it. 

“If at any point there’s a discrepancy, the bank should be raising red flags.” 

Other Spies in the Data

These four are the tip of the iceberg. Journalists found almost 40 accounts in the Credit Suisse data linked to intelligence officials from almost a dozen countries. These include: 

Former Venezuelan army captain Carlos Luis Aguilera Borjas, known as “The Invisible One,” who served as Hugo Chavez’s bodyguard in the 1990s. 

As director of Venezuela’s intelligence services for two years in the early 2000s, Aguilera was known for arresting opposition politicians. He resigned around 2002, having failed to prevent a coup attempt that almost overthrew the president. Aguilera then focused on business, and is said to have banked around $90m from a corrupt deal to overhaul a Caracas metro line. 

Aguilera opened one account at Credit Suisse in June 2011 and within a few months it was worth almost 7.8-million Swiss francs ($8.6m). Another, linked to a legal entity he controlled, was opened in July 2011 and held a maximum value of almost 5-million Swiss francs. 

Aguilera did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, accounts were held by Valery Khoroshkovsky, former head of the security service, and now a business tycoon. His are among the highest value accounts in the data. One account, listed as a legal entity, was valued at 1 billion Swiss francs in September 2006. In December 2006, he resigned as CEO of Russian steel giant Evraz and joined Ukraine’s security and defense council, which focuses on national security issues. The account was still active more than two years later.

Khoroshkovsky denied having had a bank account “in the mentioned bank in [the] given period,” but would not elaborate. “I consider this to be the end of this matter,” he said. 

In Egypt, an account was held by Ashraf Marwan, a spy whose allegiances were as murky as his finances. While serving as an intelligence adviser to his father-in-law, President Gamel Abdal Nasser, Marwan is known to have leaked intelligence to Israeli forces during the 1973 Yom Kippur War – but his family and other supporters claim the information he gave Israel was fake. Marwan’s account at Credit Suisse, listed under a legal entity, was opened in 2000. By that time he’d left intelligence work behind and moved to the U.K., where he purchased a stake in Chelsea Football Club. Seven years later he was dead, after a mysterious fall from his London balcony. His wife, Mona Nasser, later told the press his death was retribution for betraying Israeli intelligence. Nasser did not respond to questions sent by OCCRP.

From Germany, former secret police officer Jürgen Czilinsky held an account worth some 218-million Swiss francs ($206m) as of January 2010. Czilinsky had left Germany after the collapse of Communism, landing in Congo-Brazzaville, where he reportedly set up a waste management business. Czilinsky did not respond to a request for comment. 

Also in the data are accounts belonging to figures with ties to Uzbekistan’s intelligence services, which multiple human rights organisations have accused of torture, forced disappearance, and arbitrary detention. In 2009, former intelligence officer Ikram Yakubov told BBC Newsnight he’d witnessed these abuses firsthand, and claimed he had been forced to fabricate evidence against people he knew were innocent.

Other accounts were linked to intelligence figures from Iraq, Jordan, Montenegro, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Yemen. The oldest holding dates back to the mid-1970s, while the highest balance among the spies is Khoroshkovsky’s 1-billion Swiss francs. 

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

20 February 2022 - BY OCCRP, SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG AND TKTKTK

Thousands ignored a curfew to protest in Cairo, Egypt, in January 2011. 

Mass dissent forced president Hosni Mubarak out of office. File photo.
Image: Getty Images

In the waning years of their father’s regime in Egypt, Gamal and Alaa Mubarak were masters of their world, hopping between investment forums, policy meetings, and luxury homes in Egypt and abroad. The liberalising economy under President Hosni Mubarak was booming, and the brothers had the connections to cash in.

Subsidy cuts were planned, state firms were lucratively privatised, and government-owned land could be had for cheap, all for the right people. The brothers accrued hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of villas, luxury cars, and stakes in major Egyptian companies — eye-catching wealth in a country where a quarter of people lived on under $3.20 per day.

Their relatives and business partners prospered, too. Sweetheart deals padded profits of companies owned by Mubarak in-laws and allies. And it was only going to get better: Gamal, who had spearheaded the economic reforms, was widely tipped to succeed his father as president.

That all collapsed within three weeks in 2011, when millions protested across the Arab world, demanding accountability for a ruling class that had hoarded wealth and sent it abroad for decades. Mubarak resigned in February, and within half an hour Swiss authorities had frozen hundreds of millions of dollars’ of assets linked to him and his government.

A worldwide hunt was started for the Mubarak millions. Assets tied to other officials in Yemen, Syria, and Libya were also frozen in the following months and years. But a full accounting of the money stashed abroad has remained elusive, especially in jurisdictions where secrecy predominates

Now, leaked data from Credit Suisse gives new insight into some of the wealth the Mubaraks and other elites held at the Zurich-based bank in the years before the Arab Spring, and after it started to rattle their hold on power.

The data shows that the Mubarak brothers held six accounts at Credit Suisse. One of Alaa’s accounts was opened as early as 1987, when he was 27. Another joint account held by the two had a maximum balance worth 277-million Swiss francs — amounts previously suggested by statements from Egyptian authorities, but never confirmed.[1]

The brothers’ assets at the bank do appear to have been frozen after the Arab Spring, although no one has confirmed this explicitly. Through their lawyers, the Mubaraks said all of their assets “were fully declared and acquired from their professional business activities” and that they “originated from fully legitimate and lawful sources.” They said previous investigations into them were “politically motivated” and “driven by a campaign of flagrantly false allegations of corruption that was associated with the political events in Egypt of 2011.” They did not confirm or deny the account information but said it may contain “some material inaccuracies,” without elaborating.

The data also revealed previously unreported accounts in the names of both brothers’ fathers-in-law, Mohamed Magdy Rassekh and Mahmoud Yehia El-Gammal, some holding millions of Swiss francs. More accounts were held by some of the family’s business partners, including some implicated in corruption trials both before and after the Arab Spring.

The leaked data contained more accounts from Egypt than any other Arab country. But Arab elites from other countries also show up in the data, which includes the names of presidents, royal families, ministers, spies, and business moguls with close government ties. The account holders came from over half a dozen countries hit by the Arab Spring protests, including Syria, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Jordan. These accounts, which provide a glimpse into the wealth held abroad by Arab elites in the decade before the uprising, were collectively worth at least $1 billion held in just one Swiss bank.[2]

Overall, the data suggests Credit Suisse played a significant role for years helping key figures hide their wealth even as they and their governments were accused of compromising an entire region through bribery, embezzlement, and nepotism — grievances at the heart of the Arab Spring protests.

Some of these relationships stretched back decades and weathered multiple corruption scandals, as was the case with Hussein Salem, a close Mubarak associate whose name became synonymous with corruption and cronyism.[3] Others, including spy chiefs, were implicated in human rights violations such as torture and U.S.-sponsored extraordinary rendition.

Experts say that Swiss and other international banks were integral to moving the very funds Arab Spring protesters wanted to recover. Waleed Nassar, a lawyer who worked on Egypt’s asset recovery efforts, said foreign banks regularly built personal relationships with wealthy customers in Egypt, often helping send money out of the country in a way that might have otherwise raised red flags.

“You and I can’t go to a bank right now and get away with some of the most basic things that are atypical protocol-wise, but these guys can,” he said. “But for their conduct, a lot of the money would have never have been able to be transferred outside of Egypt in the first place.”

In a statement, Credit Suisse said it rejected “allegations and inferences about the bank’s purported business practices,” and said it was continually working “to strengthen its compliance and control framework.” The bank said that the accounts presented by the investigation were “predominantly historical” and “based on partial, selective information taken out of context, resulting in tendentious interpretations of the bank's business conduct.”

“While Credit Suisse cannot comment on potential client relationships, we can confirm that actions have been taken in line with applicable policies and regulatory requirements at the relevant times, and that related issues have already been addressed,” the bank said.

Historic Ties: Abdul Halim Khaddam

Over the years that his Credit Suisse account was open, former Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars’ worth of cash, company shares, and palatial mansions — a striking fortune for a lifelong public servant.

Khaddam served in high-level government positions from 1970 to 2005, first as foreign minister and then vice president under Hafez Al-Assad. He rose to prominence in the 1980s while helping manage Syria’s involvement in neighboring Lebanon’s civil war, and its subsequent occupation of the country. Seeking to foster pro-Damascus Lebanese politicians, Khaddam struck up a friendship with the wealthy businessman Rafik Hariri, backing his successful run for prime minister of Lebanon in 1992. Hariri was known to grease his relationships with money, and his friendship with Khaddam was no exception.

A former high-level Syrian official told OCCRP that Khaddam had “dominated Lebanon through Hariri,” who in turn paid him back with favors. He recalled meeting Khaddam in Damascus, where the vice president was “living a legendary life.” Khaddam had a reputation for a level of corruption that was so obvious it “does not need documents” to be proven, the former official said.

Further charges against Khaddam emerged after Hariri was assassinated during his second prime ministership in 2005, a murder widely blamed on the Damascus regime.

The following year, Khaddam defected from the Syrian government led by its current president, Bashar Al-Assad, and fled to Paris. In retaliation, Syrian officials began leaking details of his previous dealings.

In a briefing with journalists, officials said Khaddam had taken about $500m from Hariri over two decades, some in the form of houses, yachts, and funds held in French, Lebanese, and Swiss bank accounts. Syrian media also reported that Khaddam had taken bribes in the 1980s to allow France and Germany to bury radioactive waste in the desert.

Details of Khaddam’s Credit Suisse account, which he held jointly with his wife and three sons, confirm the family indeed accumulated substantial wealth while Khaddam was in office. The account, opened in 1994, reached its highest balance worth nearly 90-million Swiss francs in September 2003.

Khaddam died in 2020. His sons did not respond to phone calls or repeated requests for comment sent by email and text message. Credit Suisse did not comment on the account but said it adhered to relevant policies and regulations.

What is Suisse Secrets? Everything you need to know about the Swiss banking leak

Suisse Secrets is an international investigation into one of the world’s wealthiest and most important banks.

NEWS

12 hours ago

The former vice-president was just one among many Arab elites who used Switzerland to stockpile his wealth. For years, the country’s financial secrecy and relative stability made it a popular destination for legal and illicit funds.

“The perception that it was a safe haven for hiding wealth in a way which provided high levels of secrecy made it an attractive destination for many individuals,” Jackson Oldfield, a researcher at the Civil Forum for Asset Recovery advocacy group, told OCCRP.

Switzerland and other European countries were also seen as “stable in the sense that this money’s not going to disappear because of currency fluctuations, because of unstable governments in the future,” he said.

In total, the Suisse Secrets data showed that five former or current heads of state and government from the Arab world held Credit Suisse accounts. It also included spy chiefs and others associated with intelligence agencies — the backbone of many Arab states — from Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. Some accounts were held by prominent business figures accused of acting as frontmen for Arab regimes.

In Syria, these clients included Mohammad Makhlouf, the brother of former President Hafez Al-Assad’s wife, who acted as a front for his brother-in-law for years while leveraging his political ties into a commercial empire spanning tobacco, real estate, banking and oil.

The Egyptian tycoon Hussein Salem, a longtime Mubarak ally with links to the country’s intelligence agencies, was a Credit Suisse customer for over three decades. He held at least a dozen accounts with balances often running into the tens of millions, despite being publicly linked to corruption scandals for years before and after the Arab Spring.

Even Libya — sanctioned by the United Nations in 1992 to pressure Muammar Gaddafi to cooperate with investigations into the bombing of an airplane over Lockerbie, Scotland[8] — provided numerous clients, including a cluster of individuals accused of plundering a public development fund over two decades.[9]

Salem died in 2019 and Makhlouf died in 2020. OCCRP sent messages to Salem’s lawyer by email and to Makhlouf’s son, Rami, through his social media accounts, but did not receive a response. A lawyer for Ahmed Lamlum, one of the Libyan businessmen, said his “business activities have always been lawful and tax compliant.”

Networked Customers: Mubarak’s Egypt

From his high-level position in Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party, Gamal Mubarak oversaw many of his father’s economic reforms in the years before the Arab Spring. The liberalisation was popular with investors, but it did little to improve living conditions for many Egyptians: Poverty rates rose from around 17 to 25 percent in the decade and a half until 2011.

At the same time, an elite network connected to the Mubaraks profited from the new business environment, buying state land and other assets for cheap and benefiting from state-backed loans. Many of the proceeds made their way into foreign bank accounts.

Corruption trials after the Arab Spring showed that, in addition to family ties and joint ownership in some of the country’s biggest companies, many of these elites were also connected by suspect dealings behind the scenes.

One of those to benefit was Mohamed Magdy Rassekh, whose daughter Heddy was married to Gamal’s brother Alaa.[10] Throughout the 1990s, Rassekh accumulated numerous holdings, including in the gas sector. He also invested in real estate, serving as non-executive chairman of the Egyptian luxury property developer SODIC.

After the Arab Spring, a court found that Rassekh had conspired with a former housing minister to obtain plots of land outside Cairo at below market rates. In 2012, Rassekh was sentenced to five years in prison, although last year he managed to strike a “reconciliation” deal with Egyptian authorities whereby he and the minister paid over 1.3-billion Egyptian pounds — over $80m at the time — to have the charges removed. Rassekh did not reply to repeated requests for comment sent to his lawyer.

The Suisse Secrets data shows that Rassekh was a Credit Suisse customer for over half a decade before the Arab Spring. An account opened in 2005 was worth over 3-million Swiss francs the following year. It was closed in 2015, more than four years after his name first appeared on lists of figures whose assets were frozen after Egypt’s uprising. Credit Suisse declined to comment on the account, but said it adhered to relevant policies and laws and addressed any issues that arose.

Tracing assets held by Rassekh and other members of the Mubarak family shows how deeply family, business, and political ties were intertwined on the eve of the Arab Spring – and how many of the system’s key figures held accounts at Credit Suisse:

• The real estate company SODIC was partly owned by a Cairo-based investment bank, EFG-Hermes, where Gamal Mubarak held shares in a subsidiary that earned him $880,000 in dividends per year.
• The bank’s chief executive officer, Yasser El-Mallawany — who held two[11] Credit Suisse accounts — was arrested in 2012 alongside the Mubarak brothers. They were charged with manipulating stock prices to profit from a separate bank they co-owned, but were acquitted in 2020. Through his lawyer, Mallawany said information regarding the accounts was “not correct,” but did not elaborate. He denied any wrongdoing and said that the main source of funds was “derived from his professional work and the proceeds of his ownership in the companies where he assumed a managerial role.”
• Both Mallawany and Alaa Mubarak[12] held shares in another luxury property developer, Palm Hills, run by billionaire Yasseen Mansour, who also held multiple Credit Suisse accounts. Mansour’s assets were briefly frozen in 2011 on corruption charges but he was cleared the following year, reportedly after paying 250 million Egyptian pounds to the authorities.[13]
• His cousin,[14] Mubarak’s former Housing Minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi, was convicted for engineering a corrupt land deal[15] that benefited Palm Hills.[16] Mansour did not respond to multiple requests for comment sent by OCCRP and his companies or calls made to his personal and business phone numbers
• One of Mansour’s Credit Suisse accounts was held jointly with other individuals including another Egyptian real estate mogul, Hisham Talaat Moustafa. The data shows that Moustafa’s name appeared on multiple Credit Suisse accounts, including one family account that remained open after he was convicted in 2009 of murdering his mistress, a Lebanese pop singer, in Dubai. Moustafa did not respond to calls and messages sent to his personal and company numbers seeking comment.
• Gamal Mubarak’s father-in-law, Mahmoud Yehia El-Gammal, who was convicted on profiteering charges after the uprising, also held a Credit Suisse account from 2006 to 2013 that was worth up to nearly 20-million Swiss francs. Gammal did not respond to repeated requests for comment sent to his lawyer.
• Mubarak’s information minister, Anas El-Fekky, convicted of embezzlement, bribery, and wasting public funds in 2014, held an account with a maximum balance worthf over 3-million Swiss francs in 2007. (In 2011, Fekky reportedly told Egyptian investigators he had deposited $2m in a “Swiss bank,” but no specifics were given. It was not clear if this referred to the Credit Suisse account or not.) Fekky did not reply to repeated requests for comment sent to him through his social media accounts and calls made to his company.

How did so many interconnected figures end up banking at the same institution? One former senior Credit Suisse executive told OCCRP that in emerging markets the bank often focused on recruiting staff from “good families” who “have access to wealthy families” and could provide referrals for other similarly positioned clients.

These media allegations appear to be a concerted effort to discredit the bank and the Swiss financial marketplace, which has undergone significant changes over the last several years.

Credit Suisse

Often, the former executive said, introductions to so-called “politically exposed persons” would come at “a very senior level” and would allow the client to “bypass normal procedure” while those managing the accounts were “bureaucrats or functionaries of the bank” who “do not ask questions, have no knowledge of the region and no banking knowledge.”

“Outwardly the bank conforms to the letter of its rules and laws, but in reality, it is the size of your checkbook that matters, and in that case, they will look in the other direction,” the former executive said.

Credit Suisse rejected these characterisations.

“As a leading global financial institution, Credit Suisse is deeply aware of its responsibility to clients, and the financial system as a whole to ensure that the highest standards of conduct are upheld,” the bank said. “These media allegations appear to be a concerted effort to discredit the bank and the Swiss financial marketplace, which has undergone significant changes over the last several years.”

For a moment, as the Arab Spring unsettled regional power structures, it looked like 2011 would be a break with the way of doing business many had come to associate with the Mubaraks and other elites. But the next few years would prove to be far more complex.

Meet the New Boss

There are indications that many Middle East elites sent money for safekeeping in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe as protestors battered at the walls of their privilege at home.

Swiss authorities reported a surge in “suspicious transactions” — those potentially associated with bribery, money laundering, or other offenses — from Arab countries to over 600-million Swiss francs in 2011. They attributed the rise both to more stringent reporting requirements and Arab Spring unrest.[17]

In September 2011, the Bank for International Settlements, a Switzerland-based financial institution owned by central banks, said international banks reported a surge in liabilities to Egyptian residents of over $6bn, and to Libyan residents of over $2bn, in the preceding three months, most likely reflecting “domestic funds being moved out of the two countries as a result of the elevated levels of political and economic uncertainty.”

The Suisse Secrets data does not show how many, if any, of these transactions involved Credit Suisse. But at least one elite customer was moving money abroad through the bank. Documents from a Spanish investigation showed that the family of Hussein Salem, the longtime Mubarak associate, transferred 3.5-million euros’ worth of money from Egypt to an account at Credit Suisse on January 24 and 26 2011 — just as the protests were getting going in Egypt.[18]

As the Arab Spring ground on, it became increasingly clear that the protestors’ demands to end corruption would be met only with piecemeal measures – if at all.

In Libya, Syria, and Yemen, uprisings collapsed into civil wars, quashing any hope for reform. Monarchies in Jordan, Morocco, and the Gulf states held strong while instituting cosmetic reforms.

Egypt’s democratic experiment ended abruptly in the summer of 2013, when a military officer named Abdel Fattah El-Sisi toppled the country’s first freely elected president, Mohammad Morsi. Optimism gave way to the realisation that most of the Swiss assets frozen after the uprising would not be returned.

In Egypt, a series of “reconciliation” deals caused many corruption charges to be cleared. In 2017, Swiss authorities said they were ending their legal assistance program with Cairo and unfreezing related assets, although some 430-million Swiss francs under criminal investigation in Switzerland — the bulk of it apparently related to the Mubarak brothers — stayed frozen.[20]

In November last year, an Egyptian court issued a final ruling canceling the Mubarak brothers’ asset freezes.[21] Through their lawyer, the brothers said in December the Swiss federal prosecutor “gave notice to the parties of the imminent conclusion and closure of the case.”[22]

Oldfield, of the Civil Forum for Asset Recovery, said that while the Arab Spring brought new attention to illicit financial flows between Europe and North Africa, “nothing has changed too substantially.”

“The underlying theme is still that it’s relatively easy to hide illicit wealth in Europe, and it’s relatively a welcoming place to do so,” he said. “This is not a problem which has ended. It’s still very much ongoing.”

Nassar, the lawyer who worked on asset recovery in Egypt, said that the efforts started to lose steam as the political will to find and return assets receded. Even under Morsi, he recalled that many officials questioned how successful the program would be.

“They were always skeptical of whether we could get any money back,” Nassar said. “In hindsight, I think they were prescient.”

---

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