First up, AFP via Insider Paper, February 20:
Credit Suisse bank held tens of billions of euros of dirty money for decades, a new cross-border media investigation claimed Sunday, based on a massive date leak from an insider.
Credit Suisse rejected the “allegations and insinuations” in a statement Sunday, saying that many of the issues raised were historical, some dating back as far as the 1940s.
The investigation was coordinated by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which unites 47 different media outlets worldwide including France’s Le Monde and The Guardian in Britain.
This latest project, dubbed “SwissLeaks” by the OCCRP, arose out of a leak of data to Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspapers a little over a year ago.
The investigation showed that Credit Suisse had flouted international banking rules by holding funds linked to crime and corruption over several decades, wrote Le Monde.
The leak included information on more than 18,000 bank accounts dating back to the 1940s and up to the end of the 2010 decade belonging to 37,000 individuals or companies, said the OCCRP.
It was the largest leak ever from a major Swiss bank, it added....
....MUCH MORE
And from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, February 20:
Swiss banks have been synonymous with secrecy for decades, conjuring up visions of vast riches safely held in mountain vaults. It's a strong brand — one Switzerland's government does everything it can to protect.
But what's good for the banks' wealthy clients can be bad for everyone else. When corrupt politicians or organized criminals turn to Switzerland to keep their money safe from prying eyes, the victims of their crimes will likely never see it again. And once dirty money makes it into a Swiss bank account, it's free to go anywhere.
Switzerland's draconian[*] banking secrecy laws have made it nearly impossible for other governments or journalists to hold the industry to account. Until now.
Through our partner, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, OCCRP obtained leaked records on more than 18,000 Credit Suisse accounts, the largest leak ever from a major Swiss bank. This is just a small subset of the bank's overall holdings, but we still found dozens of dubious characters in the data, including an Algerian general accused of torture, the children of a brutal Azerbaijani strongman, and even a Serbian drug lord known as Misha Banana.
Read on to learn more about what we — and our media partners on five continents — found in the data...
....MUCH, MUCH MORE
*Dracos got a bum rap from history, he was actually tough but fair.
