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The European People’s Party (EPP), the group with the largest number of seats in the European Parliament, called on February 21 for a review of Swiss banking practices and the possible inclusion of the country on the European Union’s red list of money laundering . According to a journalistic investigation, the Credit Suisse bank maintained thousands of bank accounts for clients around the world with funds linked to corruption and other crimes. In the region, the flow of money linked to PDVSA stands out.
‘Suisse Secrets’ or ‘the Swiss Secrets’, the new global financial scandal for which Switzerland risks being labeled by the EU as “a country at high risk of money laundering”.
According to an international journalistic investigation, the Credit Suisse bank maintained millionaire bank accounts for years of people from all over the world linked to various crimes. Assets linked to dictators, human rights violators, drug traffickers and businessmen under sanctions stand out.
The funds would have reached a combined value of around 100,000 million dollars, according to the data leak published by ‘The New York Times’, which is part of the consortium of 50 media outlets that, together with the non-profit organization Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, investigated the case.
A Credit Suisse leak has shed light on the holdings of powerful figures across the Middle East. The revelations raise new questions about the ability of elites to profit from their public posts in countries where a lack of transparency can aid corruption. https://t.co/1tnnuCM2YL
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 21, 2022
The investigation was based on some 18,000 Swiss bank accounts, initially leaked by an unidentified person to the German newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ a year ago.
The data is related to accounts hosted in the aforementioned bank between the 1940s and 2010s.
EU parliamentarians urge Switzerland to be placed on money laundering red list
Against this background, the European People’s Party (EPP), the conservative group that occupies the largest number of seats in the European Parliament, asked the European Commission (EC) on Monday to “re-evaluate Switzerland as a high-risk country” funds from illegal activities.
“The findings point to the massive shortcomings of Swiss banks when it comes to preventing money laundering (…) When Swiss banks fail to correctly apply international anti-money laundering standards, Switzerland itself becomes a jurisdiction high-risk,” said the EPP’s coordinator for economic affairs, Markus Ferber.
BREAKING: Leaked bank records show how Credit Suisse helped dictators, corrupt politicians, spies, and criminals hide their illicit fortunes.
This is #SuisseSecretsone of the world’s largest investigations into the world of Swiss banking 🇨🇭 https://t.co/ijEPe5aNN2
— Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (@OCCRP) February 20, 2022
The EU’s money laundering list currently includes 21 countries that are considered to have deficiencies in their anti-money laundering rules and practices, including Iran, Myanmar, Syria and North Korea. At the moment, no European country is on the list.
What does Credit Suisse answer?
The financial institution “strongly” rejects the accusations and assures that the disclosed information was taken out of context and corresponds to past events.
The reports are based on “partial, inaccurate or selective information taken out of context,” the scandal-tainted bank insisted.
According to Credit Suisse, the accounts indicated are already “closed or in the process of being closed.”
Credit Suisse would have accepted millions of dollars from linked to PDVSA
The bank allegedly dismissed alerts from its own employees about “suspicious activities” in the finances of its clients, including those accused of corruption around the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
More than 20 Venezuelans linked to that company, including Nervis Villalobos, former Deputy Minister of Energy under the government of the late Hugo Chávez, had accounts in the Swiss bank for at least 273 million dollars, according to the investigation.
The leak indicated that Villalobos opened an account in September 2011 and in less than two years he already accumulated assets of 10.3 million dollars at current exchange rates. The former minister is being investigated in Spain for alleged money laundering in the country of funds from the looting of PDVSA.
The Swiss entity would also have housed the fortunes of government figures in the Middle East or senior intelligence officials from countries collaborating with the US in the war against terrorism, as well as their families.
With Reuters and EFE