'Swissleaks' investigation targets Credit Suisse

[PARIS] Credit Suisse held tens of billions of euros of dirty money for decades, a new cross-border media investigation claimed on Sunday, based on a massive date leak from an insider.

Credit Suisse rejected the "allegations and insinuations" in a statement on 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.

In its statement on Sunday, the bank said: "Credit Suisse strongly rejects the allegations and insinuations about the bank's purported business practices.

"The matters presented are predominantly historical, in some cases dating back as far as the 1940s, and the accounts of these matters are based on partial, inaccurate, or selective information taken out of context, resulting in tendentious interpretations of the bank's business conduct."

About 90 per cent of the accounts reviewed were closed - or were in the process of being closed - before the press approached bank, it added. And more than 60 per cent of them had been closed before 2015.

The sums identified in the leaked accounts amount to more than US$100 billion (S$134.6 billion), said Le Monde.

They involve mainly developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America. Only 1 per cent of the accounts concerned clients based in western Europe.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second largest bank, was hit by a series of setbacks a year ago.

In March 2021, the bank was hit by the collapse of Greensill Capital in which it had committed some US$10 billion through four funds. The implosion of the US fund Archegos cost it more than US$5 billion.

News media involved in the SwissLeaks include The New York Times, Italy's La Stampa, Kenya's Africa Uncensored and Argentina's La Nacion. AFP