A Credit Suisse banker accused of money laundering said the bank ignored allegations of cocaine smuggling and murders. The current trial is Switzerland’s first against a major bank.
The trial before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, in the canton of Ticino, centers on the relationships Credit Suisse and a former employee had with an alleged cocaine trafficking ring from Bulgaria, former professional wrestler Evelin Banev and a number of his associates.
Credit Suisse rejects the allegations and maintains the female former banker is innocent. Banev who was convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 2007, is not facing charges in Switzerland and has denied laundering money through Credit Suisse.
Murders
As «Reuters» reported from the trial, a June 2005 email from a Credit Suisse banker downplaying press reports in which a Banev associate was murdered in retalation to drug trafficking, was read out in court.
The banker wrote «After the homicide we have decided to continue the business relationships,» and that «The said (short and imprecise) article linking the murder to Spanish cocaine...has not been confirmed,» the Reuters report said.
Two years later, the victim's mother was also murdered just before she was scheduled to make a statement related to the investigation of Banev, who was in custody at that point.
Customer relationship continued
The banker subsequently alerted her managers, and the response was to essentially ignore the developments, she said.
«The reaction I received when talking with my hierarchy, the questions were: was the person killed a bank client? No, she was not,» she told the court.
«Is she in any way linked to (the) bank, do you know her?» she said, recalling the conversation. «I said: 'No, never met her'. And then the reaction was, well then what is your problem?,» Reuters reported.
Convincing Arguments
For the Federal Prosecutor's Office, the incidents are a convincing argument for the inadequate money laundering defense at Credit Suisse (CS).
Looking Back
A former supervisor of CS's Eastern European business, summoned by the court, testified that money laundering as a criminal offense was still relatively new to the bank at the time.
CS had expert opinions confirm that its organization in the years in question between 2004 and 2007 was compliant with the requirements of financial supervision (at that time Swiss Federal Banking Commission SFBC). The bank formally rejects the accusations against the company and also against the former employee.
