Credit Suisse has hosted at least 96 billion euros in funds of criminal or illicit origin from all over the world. Under the name of “Suisse secrets”, several daily newspapers published the names of thousands of questionable accounts of the banking group from 1940 to 2010. In this ocean of corruption, the African continent is well represented.
The “Swiss Secrets”, published by the Guardian, The worldthe New York Times and the Suddeutsche Zeitunggave the names of several thousand Credit Suisse bank accounts from 1940 to 2010. This journalistic investigation, with its share of revelations, is a continuation of the “Panama Papers” and the “Paradise Papers”.
In the dubious accounts of the second Swiss bank, we find the names of Algerian generals, Nigerian civil servants, Mozambican or Zimbabwean politicians, Kenyan or even Libyan businessmen who hid in Switzerland the money from trafficking and corruption. We can read, for example, the names of the two sons of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who accumulated six accounts at Credit Suisse, accounts of Nigerian civil servants fed by an executive of the German company Siemens or American Hedge Funds involved in doubtful loans to the government. Mozambican.
Above all, we notice the names of hundreds of Algerian dignitaries who, starting in the 1970s, deposited large sums in Switzerland. These include, for example, the former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, or his Minister of Defense at the time, General Khaled Nezzar. They each had more than two million Swiss francs in their accounts at Credit Suisse until 2010, knowing that General Nezzar’s monthly salary officially did not exceed 3,000 euros. However, Algerian law stipulates that any Algerian who deposits money abroad for his own account violates the law.
We also learn that Credit Suisse granted a loan of 100 million dollars to Billy Rautenbach, close to Robert Mugabe, for the purchase of a platinum mine in Zimbabwe. This money made it possible to finance a wave of violence in 2008 to prevent the second round of the presidential election likely to be won by the democratic opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai, and thus save the regime of Robert Mugabe. The platinum mine in question has never really been exploited. The investigation has shed new light on the role the Swiss bank played in the financial package that saved Robert Mugabe from defeat and dragged Zimbabwe into a financial and economic crisis from which it has still not emerged.
What this survey reveals is that Swiss banking secrecy has only been lifted since 2017 for OECD countries but not for poor countries in Africa, Latin America or Asia, and in particular those likely to harbor these illicit activities. The journalists of “Suisse Secrets” had access to only a very small part of the data on Credit Suisse customers. The tip of the corruption iceberg. Other revelations could follow.