Suisse Secrets

Suisse secrets was a February 2022 leak of details of more than CHF 100 billion (roughly US$108.5bn, €95.5bn or £80bn) held in nominee accounts linked to over 30,000 clients of Credit Suisse, the largest ever leak from a major Swiss bank.

Background

On 20 February 2022, the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' reported that "over a year ago" it had received secret data through a secure digital mailbox on more than 30,000 Credit Suisse bank customers and their more than 18,000 accounts, which provide insights into the inner workings of the banking giant. The data was evaluated by 48 media companies from all over the world, among them the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, ''The Guardian'', ''The New York Times'' and ''Le Monde''. Swiss news organisations did not participate in the investigation because a Swiss law concerning bank secrecy forbids the publication of banking secrets.
The data covers accounts and transactions from the 1940s up to 2010.

Statement of the source

The data were leaked anonymously by a person or group, who wrote in an accompanying statement, that they felt Swiss banking secrecy laws were "immoral", that "Swiss banks .. erecollaborators of tax evaders", because "a significant number of these accounts were opened with the sole purpose of hiding their holder's wealth from fiscal institutions and/or avoiding the payment of taxes on capital gains".
They opined that Common Reporting Standards were a step in the right direction, but imposed "a disproportionate financial and infrastructural burden on developing nations", which "enables corruption and starves developing countries of much-needed tax revenue". The source stated that "responsibility for this state of affairs does not lie with Swiss banks but rather with the Swiss legal system".

Notable people named

As a result of the leak, numerous people allegedly involved in crimes ranging from corruption and bribery to drug and human trafficking became known as Credit Suisse clients.

*King Abdullah II of Jordan and Queen Rania of Jordan
*Aliaksei Aleksin, Belarusian businessman blacklisted by the EU and USA, close associate of Alexander Lukashenko
*Hashim Jawan Bakht, Pakistani politician
* Haji Saifullah Khan Bangash, Pakistani politician
* Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Spanish-French aristocrat, and his wife Margarita Vargas
* Anas el-Fiqqi, Egypt, former Minister of Information
*Ivan Guta, Ukrainian agricultural baron
* Abdul Halim Khaddam, Syrian politician
* Zahid Ali Akbar Khan, Pakistani general and engineering officer
* Waqar Ahmed Khan, Pakistani politician
*Sultan Ali Lakhani, Pakistani businessman
* Luis Carlos de León, former financial director of La Electricidad de Caracas, a subsidiary of Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA
* Pavlo Lazarenko, former Prime Minister of Ukraine
* Ronald Li, founder of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
*Ferdinand Marcos, former President of the Philippines
*Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines
*Hisham Talaat Moustafa, Egyptian real estate magnate
*Gamal Mubarak and Alaa Mubarak, sons of former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak
*Sa'ad Khair, Jordanian intelligence chief
* Rana Mubashir, Pakistani journalist
* Khaled Nezzar, General and former Defense Minister of Algeria
*Akhtar Abdur Rahman, former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan
* Billy Rautenbach, Zimbabwean businessman
* Qosim Rohbar, former governor of Sughd and former Minister of Agriculture of Tajikistan
*Rodoljub Radulović, Serbian drug lord
*Hussein Salem, Egyptian businessman and advisor to Hosni Mubarak
*Armen Sarkissian, former President of Armenia
*Eduard Seidel, German businessman
* Álvaro Sobrinho, Angolan businessman
*James Soong, Taiwanese politician implicated in the Taiwan frigate scandal
* Omar Suleiman, former Vice-President of Egypt and former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate
* Nadezhda Tokayeva, former first lady of Kazakhstan
*Vasif Talibov, de facto leader of the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan
*Antonio Velardo, money launderer for two families of the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta
*Nervis Villalobos, Venezuelan energy minister under Hugo Chavez, part of massive bribery scheme
* Bruno Wang, Taiwanese fugitive implicated in the Taiwan frigate scandal

Reactions

On February 20, 2022, Credit Suisse said it "strongly reject d allegations of wrongdoing. Credit Suisse alleged it is "a coup against the Swiss banking industry" as a whole without saying who might be behind it. On March 2, 2022, it became known that its investors had been asked to destroy documents linked to yacht loans of oligarchs.

In February 2022, the European People's Party of the European Parliament proposed reviewing Swiss banking practices and money laundering status in response to the leaks, asking the European Commission to reclassify Switzerland as a high-risk country for financial crime. Liam Proud wrote in Reuters, "stability and unimpeachable competence ..seem to be lacking at Credit Suisse".

Since leaking financial data is a criminal offense in Switzerland (even if it is in the public interest) punishable with up to five years in jail, Swiss media argued in February 2022 that the banking secrecy law runs contrary to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in some cases.

See also

*Banking in Switzerland
*Panama Papers, 2016
* Pandora Papers, 2021
* Paradise Papers, 2017
*Swiss Leaks, 2015 involving HSBC

References

External links

* Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project

{{Credit Suisse

2022 scandals
Data journalism
Investigative journalism
2022 documents
Data breaches
Credit Suisse