A large-scale leak involving one of the world’s largest banks, the Swiss-based Credit Suisse, materialized on Sunday exposing the hidden wealth of clients involved in serious criminal activity, including but not limited to torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, and corruption.
The leak was originally released by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and then passed on to the New York Times by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) before it became more widely publicized. OCCRP is an NGO focusing on crime and corruption in Europe, Asia and Central America.
An anonymous whistleblower originally leaked the data to Süddeutsche Zeitung, which included information on over 30,000 accounts ranging from as far back as the 1940s to the 2010s. The whistleblower said that he leaked the information because “I believe that Swiss banking secrecy laws are immoral…The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders.”
Many of the high profile individuals were leaders and government officials from the Middle East and North Africa and even included a human trafficker from the Philippines. For example, the data revealed that King Abdullah II of Jordan had six accounts, one of which held over $224 million. The two sons of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had accounts which totaled over $196 million as of 2003. Some of the account holders have denied improper dealings by either defending the cash amounts or questioning the accuracy of the reports.
Swiss banks are not supposed to take money linked to criminal activity. However, due to the general anonymity of account holders and the grey legal area within which Swiss banks operate, it has not always been possible to police banking activity in Switzerland.
Credit Suisse released a statement in response to the data leak the same day claiming that over 90% of the leaked accounts are no longer open. The bank also accused news outlets of taking the data out of context and painted it as a malicious attempt to discredit the bank and the overall Swiss financial system.
