Two men sit under a sign of Swiss credit displayed on a building in Lugano on June 9, 2023.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty images
The Credit Suisse Services AG pleaded guilty on Monday and will pay around $ 511 million to settle a criminal case for conspired wealthy American taxpayers to hide more than $ 4 billion on at least 475 offshore accounts, said the Ministry of Justice.
In addition to this plea, the UBS The subsidiary also concluded a non-receiving agreement with the prosecutors within the framework of the American accounts which were reserved for Credit Suisse AG Singapore.
“Between 2014 and June 2023, the Credit Suisse AG Singapore has held unsuccessful accounts for American people, which the Crédit Switzerland AG Singapore knew or should have known that we, with a total asset worth more than $ 2 billion,” said the MJ.
The DoJ said that the criminal plot to which the Credit Suisse admitted guilt had enabled “individual customers in Ultra-High-Net-Net and high net” of the Swiss Financial Services Corporation to escape their American tax obligations from 2010 to 2021.
“In doing so, Credit Suisse AG has committed new crimes and has broken its advocacy agreement in May 2014 with the United States,” said the ministry.
The Credit Suisse in 2014 pleaded guilty of having helped American taxpayers to hide the Offshore accounts of the IRS and paid $ 2.6 billion to settle the case. It was at the time the greatest payment ever made in a criminal tax case.
The company pleaded guilty to a conspiracy leader on Monday to help and help prepare false income statements in the American district court in Alexandria, Virginia. The tax loss of accounts in the United States was more than $ 71 million, and the associated income of the Credit Suisse accounts exceeded $ 108.6 million, according to a legal file.
The DoJ said that the Credit Suisse and UBS are “required to cooperate fully with the current surveys and to positively disclose any information that it could discover later concerning accounts related to the United States”.
“The agreements do not provide any protection for individuals,” said the DoJ.
The advocacy occurs more than two years after the Senate finance committee said that a panel investigation revealed that the Credit Suisse had been “accomplice of the tax evasion continues by ultra-rich Americans … including an offshore, in progress and potentially criminal conspiracy involving the inability to disclose nearly 100 million dollars in secret offshore accounts belonging to a single family of American taxpayers.”
Jeffrey Neiman, a Florida lawyer who represented the reporters in the case, in a statement, said that his customers “had discovered and exposed this in progress” of the company’s violation of the initial advocacy agreement.
Neiman said that his customers, all former bankers of Crédit Suisse for more than a decade provided the DOJ, IRS and the Senate with information on the violation of the Bank of its 2014 advocacy agreement.
“At a great personal risk and potential prosecution by the Swiss authorities, they provided the government
With detailed evidence: names, social security numbers and passports of the account linked to the United States
Holders whose assets have been hidden for decades, “said Neiman.
“They made internal documents, including account statements and emails, and even shared information on the movement and the trip of
Bankers, which allowed federal agents to act quickly and effectively. “”
“For almost a decade, the reporters waited for this moment,” he said.
“Today, they feel justified – for having told the truth, to risk everything and to resist one of the most powerful financial institutions in the world.”
A charge document filed on Monday against Credit Suisse said that it was falsified bank files to hide the ownership of the United States and the control of accounts, documented certain owners of American accounts “as non-American”, processed by fictitious documents, benefiting from the profit of undetected customers, “services”, more than a million dollars, should be American complexes, more than 1 billion Dollars of American complexes without having been accomplices in terms of compression for longer compensations whose value of the complexes has been more useful closed. “
Among the manifest acts detailed in this charge document, there was the Swiss credit authorizing an American citizen and a former business professor from the University of Rochester, Dan Horseky, to keep the control of active ingredients after having modified the effective ownership of these assets to a parent who was not American citizens and other actions which allowed outerky to avoid paying taxes on active ingredients.
Outerky, who, the federal prosecutors, said that his account abroad containing $ 200 million in 2016, had pleaded guilty to tax crimes, was sentenced to seven months in prison in 2017 and paid a civil sentence of $ 100 million.
Credit Switzerland’s Parent Company, The Swiss Bank UBSIn a statement on Monday, said he was “not involved in underlying driving and has no tolerance for tax evasion”. UBS acquired Credit Suisse in 2023.
“With this resolution, UBS is happy to have solved another of the problems inherited from Credit Suisse, in accordance with the intention of UBS to resolve the questions inherited to Pace in a fair and balanced way and in the best interest of all its stakeholders,” said the bank.
“In the second quarter of 2025, UBS Group AG plans to recognize a credit of the partial liberation of the responsibility of the contingent established with the acquisition of Credit Suisse as part of the purchase price allocation process,” said the press release. “UBS AG plans to record a load in the second quarter in connection with this resolution.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the classification democrat of the Senate finance committee, said in a statement on Monday: “This regulation fully confirms the conclusions of my investigation, which explained the way in which the Swiss credit continued to hide more than $ 700 million off the rich Americans in violation of their agreement to avoid prosecution.”
“Ultra-rich and shaded Swiss bankers should not get a free pass to cook offshore tax evasion when ordinary Americans pay their fair share,” said Wyden.
