“Suisse Secrets”: 18,000 documents reveal the 100 billion dollars dirty in Switzerland in the hands of dictators, spies and corrupt

Numerous newspapers are publishing 18,000 documents leaked by Credit Suisse, the second largest bank in the world, and concerning hundreds of billions of dollars in the hands of spies, businessmen, spies and other disreputable characters.

"Suisse Secrets" – as the leak is called – was coordinated by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project , the same organization that led "the Pandora Papers" and the "Project Pegasus", two previous major leaks on topics ranging from official corruption to software-enabled illicit surveillance. Like "Pandora" and "Panama Papers," the documents exposed in "Suisse Secrets" are mostly financial data, such as bank account information, as well as evidence of internal red flags that were routinely raised and routinely ignored.

The numbers are staggering: 18,000 accounts, $ 100 billion in total assets, some of the accounts date back to the 1940s, but even the most recent details date back to the mid-2010s, allowing Credit Suisse's public relations team a fairly plausible denial. to insist that most of the accounts exposed in the leak have already been closed.

Clients identified in the leak included easily identifiable leaders such as Jordan's King Abdullah II and the obscure Pakistani intelligence chief, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan, to the family of Azerbaijani president Talibov, whose financial possessions are here. indicated

Before analyzing the report's findings, it's worth noting that a spokesperson for CS said the bank “firmly rejects” the reports' characterization of “business practices”.

Bank spokeswoman Candice Sun said in a statement that "Credit Suisse firmly rejects the allegations and inferences about the bank's alleged business practices." He said many of the reports in the leak date back decades "to a time when the laws, practices and expectations of financial institutions were very different from where they are now."

Ms. Sun said that although Credit Suisse cannot comment on specific clients, many of the accounts identified in the leaked database have already been closed. "Of the remaining active accounts, we are confident that adequate due diligence, reviews and other audit-related steps have been taken, including closures of pending accounts," he said.

Ms Sun added that the leak appears to be part of "a concerted effort to discredit the Swiss bank and financial market, which has undergone significant changes in recent years."

Swiss banking secrecy laws have long made it a haven for stashing illicit gains. In 2014, however, US authorities began cracking down on US customers of Swiss banks, and eventually, CS reached a deal in which it paid billions of dollars in restitution. But the Department of Justice and the Senate Finance Committee are investigating whether Americans continue to hold assets not registered with the bank. Meanwhile, Credit Suisse is on trial for assisting a Bulgarian wresting star involved in international cocaine trafficking.

Here are some of the people involved in the Swiss files:

• Nervis Villalobos – a former Venezuelan deputy energy minister, CS opened an account for Villalobos in 2011 in which he deposited millions despite the warning that the money was the result of public corruption.
• Alaa and Gamal Mubarak – the sons of former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, Alaa and Gamal held six accounts at various points, including one containing nearly $ 200 million in 2003.
• King Abdullah II of Jordan, one of the few leaking officials who remains in power, had six accounts, including one whose balance exceeded $ 224 million.
• General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan – A 1980s Pakistani intelligence chief who helped funnel US weapons and money to mujahideen soldiers fighting an uprising against the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan and the Soviet military. Interestingly, in 1985, the same year President Ronald Reagan called for greater oversight of direct aid to Afghanistan, an account was opened in the name of three of General Khan's sons. Years later, the account would grow to hold $ 3.7 million.
• Saad Kheir – the head of the Jordanian intelligence agency, opened an account in 2003, the same year the United States invaded Iraq, which would ultimately have been worth $ 21.6 million.
• Billy Rautenbach – a notorious US-sanctioned mining magnate for his role in financing the violent explosions around the 2008 election in Zimbabwe. The accounts were opened weeks before a mining deal funneled $ 100 million to the government of former Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe and his government, according to the OCRP.
• Rza and Seymur Talibov, the sons of an Azerbaijani strongman, received about $ 20 million in suspicious wire transfers.
• Rodoljub Radulović – aka Misha Banana, the Balkan gangster and drug trafficker controlled two accounts at Credit Suisse, including one with nearly 3.4 million Swiss francs.

No newspaper that publishes these documents is Swiss, because the country's law prohibits publishing information from leaked bank documents. Soon we will also have news of Italians involved.

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The article "Suisse Secrets": 18 thousand documents reveal the 100 billion dollars dirty in Switzerland in the hands of dictators, spies and corrupt comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/suisse-secrets-18-mila-documenti-rivelano-i-100-miliardi-di-dollari-sporchi-in-svizzera-nelle-mani-di-dittatori-spie-e-corrotti/ on Mon, 21 Feb 2022 08:18:03 +0000.