Credit Suisse raided, client assets seized in tax probe

Credit Suisse, the second-largest Swiss wealth manager, faces a sweeping tax evasion and money laundering investigation spanning five countries and potentially involving thousands of account holders.

Investigators in the Netherlands arrested two people — seizing a gold bar, paintings and jewelry — and are probing dozens more suspected of concealing millions of euros in Swiss accounts, the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service said Friday. Criminal investigations are also underway in Australia, Germany, the U.K. and France and the role of bank employees is part of the probes.

The probes represent the latest challenge for Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam as he reshapes Credit Suisse to focus on wealth management and weighs options to increase capital depleted by fines for past misbehavior. The bank said its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam were searched on Thursday by authorities in connection with client tax matters, and that it's cooperating with the authorities.

"The sheer volume of data and its international scope makes this an exceptional case," said Thierry Boitelle, a lawyer with Bonnard Lawson in Geneva.

Credit Suisse signage.
A sign sits above the entrance to Credit Suisse Group AG's headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, on Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Swiss stocks declined, with the benchmark gauge moving lower for the third time this week, led by losses in Transocean Ltd. and Credit Suisse Group AG. Photographer: Gianluca Colla/Bloomberg

Credit Suisse fell as much as 1.8 percent in Swiss trading, and was down 1.3 percent to 14.89 francs by 5:07 p.m. The stock was the worst performer in the Bloomberg Europe Banks Index.

The tip that triggered the yearlong investigation came from one or more informers to a team in the FIOD, the criminal investigation service of the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, said Wietske Visser, a FIOD spokeswoman.

The five countries coordinated their actions through the European Union's Judicial Cooperation Unit, which said in a statement that further actions are likely in the next few weeks. The raids were done without informing authorities in Switzerland, that country's attorney general's office said in a statement. The Swiss aren't conducting a criminal probe into the matter, a spokeswoman said.

In a statement Friday from Zurich, the bank said it has "implemented Dutch and French voluntary tax disclosure programs and exited non-compliant clients," and has applied a withholding tax agreement with the U.K. since 2013.

Simone Meier, a spokeswoman for Credit Suisse, declined to comment.

Thiam had been looking to shake off the negative publicity from a series of tax evasion scandals that plagued his predecessor. Credit Suisse was fined $2.6 billion in 2014 after admitting it helped Americans cheat on their tax obligations, and conducting what then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called a "shamefully inadequate internal inquiry" into the wrongdoing.

In Europe, Credit Suisse agreed in October to pay about 109.5 million euros ($117 million) to Italian authorities to resolve a probe into the bank's use of insurance policies allegedly designed to help clients evade taxes, five years after paying 150 million euros to settle a tax evasion dispute with the German government.

Thiam, who took over the top job less than two years ago, has pledged to focus on wealth management, and has had to deal with fresh scandals and fines unrelated to tax evasion. Credit Suisse has had to defend its role in allegations of criminal fraud and negligence to the detriment of Russian and Turkish clients by former employees of its wealth management unit. The bank also agreed in December to pay a $2.48 billion civil penalty to resolve a U.S. investigation into its mortgage-backed business.

"The impact for the bank is very hard to assess right now, but generally I'd say it's a setback for every private bank when you are being investigated," said Chirantan Barua, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in London. "The pressure on offshore private banking will be relentless over coming years."

Credit Suisse isn't alone. Eighty Swiss banks have entered into nonprosecution agreements with the Department of Justice in return for disclosing details on how tax evasion by their banking clients worked. UBS Group AG, Switzerland's largest bank, turned over client names and paid $780 million in 2009 to settle its own dispute over tax evasion with the U.S. government.

The fresh investigations come as Credit Suisse begins implementing a new global standard for the automated exchange of information for its European locations. About 100 countries, or jurisdictions, including Switzerland, have agreed to collect data from banks to share annually with other tax authorities, making it harder for tax dodgers and money launderers to hide money with private banks.

The Netherlands has shared information about 55,000 people with accounts at a Swiss bank with authorities outside the country, spokeswoman Marieke van der Molen at the Dutch public prosecutor's office said. Information about a further 3,800 Dutch people was also received, and in the Netherlands there are "dozens of suspects," she said.

"The investigation has brought to light several thousand bank accounts opened in Switzerland that weren't declared by their owners to French tax services," the French financial prosecutor said in a statement.

The U.K. tax authority is investigating "senior employees" at a global financial institution, it said in a statement. Australia's Serious Financial Crime Taskforce said it had identified 346 of its citizens "with links to Swiss banking relationship managers alleged to have actively promoted and facilitated tax evasion schemes."

"The international reach of this investigation sends a clear message that there is no hiding place for those seeking to evade tax," the U.K. authority said in its statement.

Bloomberg News
Tax evasion Wealth management Credit Suisse
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