Credit Suisse says it closed 90% of accounts linked to corruption allegations

The Swiss bank Credit Suisse came out to defend itself against the accusations that for decades it kept the fortunes of people linked to corruption, affirming that the facts exposed are “inaccurate and taken out of context”, and assuring that 90% of the accounts it reviewed in front of to these complaints were already closed or in the process of being closed when he was informed of these inquiries.

The accusations arose from information published by The New York Times, which carried out this investigation as part of a consortium of fifty media outlets and which, with the support of an NGO dedicated to fighting corruption and crime Organized, he was able to analyze the data of 18,000 accounts of the second largest bank in Switzerland.

That information had been transmitted a year ago to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung by an unidentified person, which launched an investigation called “Swiss Secrets”.

In a statement issued from its world headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, Credit Suisse asserts that the facts presented are predominantly “historical”, that some date back to the 1940s, and that generally what is stated is “partial, inaccurate or with selected information taken out of context, resulting in biased interpretations of the bank’s conduct.

According to the leak, Credit Suisse opened accounts and served as clients between the 1940s and the 2010s “people whose troubled situations would have been obvious to anyone putting their names into a search engine” like Google.

The bank allegedly ignored alerts from its own employees about suspicious activities by its clients, including those accused of corruption around Venezuela’s state oil company, government figures in the Middle East, or senior intelligence officials from countries collaborating with the United States in the fight against The terrorism.

The media consortium addressed the bank during its investigation to communicate the information it had in hand, which led the entity to “review a large number of accounts potentially linked to the issues exposed and approximately 90% of them are today closed or were in the process of closing before the press requests were received”.

The bank noted that 60% of all those accounts had been closed before 2015.

“As for the remaining active accounts, we feel comfortable that due diligence has been carried out and controls have been carried out in accordance with our current framework. We continue to analyze the facts and will take additional steps if necessary,” he assured.

Although it indicated that it takes the complaints seriously and that it will continue with its internal investigations, the financial entity said that this appears to be part of a “concerted effort” to discredit not only the bank, but also the Swiss financial market, which has applied deep changes in recent years. (I)