Prosecutors in Munich suspect wealthy Germans deployed sham losses to reduce their tax burden. This has led officials to Banque Cramer's door.
Geneva-based Cramer & Cie SA is suspected of aiding German entrepreneurs to evade millions of euros in taxes, according to «Handelsblatt» (behind paywall, in German), which cited an investigating document from a Munich court it had viewed.
Specifically, prosecutors are homing in on certificates issued by Cramer which enabled the German clients to book would-be losses, in turn lessening their tax obligations by double-digit million euro sums, the German business daily reported. It isn't clear whether the investigation in Munich is widened to the bank, which didn't comment, or any employees.
For Cramer, it is the second investigation it has been linked to in the past year: Switzerland's attorney general is probing whether Cramer enabled illicit money to be laundered in connection with the Petrobras-Odebrecht graft scandal at Brazil's state-controlled oil firm.
