Already involved in several scandals during the year 2021, Crédit Suisse has once again been on the front of the stage, since Sunday evening February 20.
A consortium of several dozen media claims that the financial institution has "hosted funds linked to crime and corruption for several decades" and this "in defiance of the rules of vigilance imposed on large international banks", according to the daily. The world.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a consortium of 47 media – including Le Monde, The Guardian, the Miami Herald and La Nacion – is based on data from more than 18,000 bank accounts hosted since the beginning of the 1940 and until the end of the 2010s.
These data were submitted anonymously a little over a year ago to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, concerning accounts belonging to 37,000 people or companies, for a total amount of more than 100 billion dollars (more than 88 billion euros). euros), "including at least eight billion linked to customers identified as problematic", assures Le Monde.
In the evening, Credit Suisse reacted strongly to these accusations via a press release, saying that the data studied are “partial, inaccurate, or are taken out of context, resulting in a biased presentation of the conduct of business” by the bank.
Some "90% of the accounts concerned are now closed, of which more than 60% before 2015", assures the bank, which also specifies "to conduct the investigation" concerning the data leak.
>> To see and read, our infographic: "The American Credit Suisse system"
For the media of the consortium, however, the practices highlighted are still current within the bank and directly involve the staff of Credit Suisse.
Worse, Le Monde adds that several media within the OCCRP, posing as "wealthy clients seeking discretion" have been offered instruments to open an account anonymously, and even the establishment of holding companies. with nominees and trusts, a way to replace anonymous numbered accounts, a practice of opacification in the process of disappearing in Switzerland.
Serial scandals for a year
Among the people listed in the data in the hands of OCCRPS, the vast majority come from developing countries: in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America and customers domiciled in Western Europe represent only 1% of the total, says the newspaper.
In particular, King Abdullah II of Jordan or Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appear, but also officials from several Arab countries "who took out large sums of money from their country during the 'Arab Spring'", details the day-to-day.
Credit Suisse, number two in the Swiss banking sector, has been rocked by a series of scandals over the past year.
In March, the bank was shattered by the bankruptcy of the financial company Greensill, in which some $10 billion had been committed through four funds, then by the implosion of the American fund Archegos which cost some $5 billion. dollars in the bank.
In October, it was also seen inflicting 475 million dollars in penalties by the American and British authorities for its loans to state-owned companies in Mozambique, which had found themselves at the heart of a corruption scandal.
Its new president, Antonio Horta-Osório, elected at the end of April in the midst of the turmoil, had launched a reorganization of the bank's activities with the aim of putting risk management back at the heart of the bank's culture.
But this Portuguese banker, who had forged a solid reputation for having turned around the British bank Lloyds, was himself splashed by press revelations in December concerning quarantine rules which he had broken.
In mid-January, he had resigned, handing over to Axel Lehmann, a Swiss banker recognized for his expertise in risk management, who had joined the board of directors in October.
At the beginning of February, a trial also opened before the Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, around a Bulgarian criminal organization.
With AFP
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