UBS: A Swiss Bank's Shadowy Operations

With help from a former UBS banker, the Feds are demystifying how the Swiss do business. Inside the tradecraft.

According to a recent U.S. Senate investigation, a single Swiss bank—the biggest, UBS—holds the secret bank accounts of 46,000 Americans, worth an estimated $18 billion. Lately, the Feds have tried to crack down on these rich Americans as tax evaders (generally, the depositors do not pay any taxes on the income from these accounts). The Swiss, not surprisingly, have been resisting. For more than three centuries, Swiss bank secrecy has offered safe ... Full Story »

Posted by Kaizar Campwala

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Derek Hawkins
4.0
by Derek Hawkins - Mar. 19, 2009

If you would have told me this was a Harper's or Mother Jones story, I would have believed it. It's edgy -- very edgy for Newsweek -- and at the same time carefully reported. Could have been broader, but the dig on Olenicoff is great.

“UBS sincerely regrets the compliance failures in its U.S. cross-border business that have been identified by the various government investigations in Switzerland and the U.S., as well as our own internal review.” Translation: the Swiss bank was running a shadowy operation to help rich Americans get their money out of the country, and sometimes back in, without the Feds finding out.

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