Suisse leak unearths hidden wealth of corrupt politicians, fraudsters, criminals

A massive leak of data from Credit Suisse, one of the world’s most iconic banks, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in money laundering, corruption, torture, drug trafficking and other serious crimes.

According to a report released by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), journalists from different countries have obtained leaked records identifying more than 18,000 accounts belonging to foreign customers who stashed their money at Credit Suisse.

Over 160 reporters from 48 outlets spent months poring through the data — and found that dozens of the accounts belonged to corrupt politicians, criminals, spies, dictators, and other dubious characters.

Credit Suisse’s clients included the family of an Egyptian intelligence chief who oversaw torture of terrorism suspects for the CIA; an Italian accused of laundering criminal funds for the infamous ‘Ndrangheta criminal group; a German executive who bribed Nigerian officials for telecoms contracts; and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who held a single account worth 230 million Swiss francs ($223 million) at its peak.

A number of Central Asian names also appear in the leaked data. Though they make up only a small fraction of the clients identified by reporters, billions of Swiss francs passed through their accounts. These people represent large swaths of the Central Asian elite, including oligarchs who made their wealth from natural resource extraction, ministers, and other top officials, some of whom have been convicted of massive corruption. Even the children of two former presidents, Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, controlled Credit Suisse accounts — while the two men were still in power.

The leak follows the so-called Panama Papers in 2016, the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Pandora Papers last year. They all shed light on the secretive workings of banks, law firms and offshore financial-services providers that allow wealthy people and institutions — including those accused of crimes — to move huge sums of money.