Photo: ANP
The United States is accusing Credit Suisse of obstructing an investigation into a number of hitherto unknown secret Nazi bank accounts. The allegations center on an internal investigation by the Swiss bank after the Simon Wiesenthal Center tipped the bank new information about accounts linked to Nazism in 2020.
Although Credit Suisse initially agreed to the investigation, the bank applied an “unnecessarily strict and limited scope” and refused to follow the new guidance. The US Senate Budget Committee said in a statement that an independent ombudsman was not authorized to oversee.
When it comes to investigating Nazi cases, justice requires that we leave no stone unturned. “So Credit Suisse has fallen short of this benchmark,” Senator Chuck Grassley wrote in the statement.
Reports emerging from the investigation, obtained through a subpoena, indicate that Credit Suisse had accounts for at least 99 people who were either senior Nazis in Germany or members of Nazi-affiliated groups in Argentina. The vast majority of these laws have not been previously disclosed and only a few remained in use until recently.
Credit Suisse said in a statement on its website that the main claims made by the Simon Wiesenthal Center are not supported by research. The former investigator’s report also includes “numerous factual errors, misleading and unnecessary statements, and baseless allegations that are based on an incomplete understanding of the facts,” according to the bank.
The Bank states that it “strongly rejects this misrepresentation” and that it “cooperates fully” with the US Budget Committee’s investigation. Almost a quarter of a century ago, Credit Suisse actually reached a settlement with the victims of the Holocaust. The scandal-plagued Swiss bank was saved from collapse last month by its biggest Swiss rival, UBS.
