A former Swiss
banker accused of helping rich Americans dodge taxes, may be cooperating with a
broad U.S. government investigation of Swiss banks for providing tax evasion
services, lawyers said on Wednesday.
Speculation that
Christos Bagios is working with the United States arose after the ex-employee
of Swiss banks Credit Suisse AG and UBS AG arranged a change-of-plea hearing
following his pleading not-guilty in a U.S. federal court to new charges of
aiding tax evasion.
Bagios is a central figure in
the probe by the U.S. Department of Justice into offshore tax evasion services
sold by Swiss and Swiss-style banks.
Some lawyers said he is likely
preparing to plead guilty as part of a cooperation deal with the DOJ, a move
that could pile pressure on Swiss banks targeted by the investigation.
"The fact that he has
waived his right to indictment means it is very likely he will change his
plea" to guilty next week, said Lawrence Brown, a tax lawyer in Fort
Worth, Texas, with offshore clients. Brown added that the move would help the
government's investigation.
If this is true it
will push Credit Suisse further toward having to deal with the U.S. government.
Bagios, a Greek citizen and
Swiss resident, was a senior private banker at Credit Suisse at the time of his
arrest by U.S. authorities in January 2011. Credit Suisse, Switzerland's
second-largest bank, disclosed in July 2011 that it was being investigated by
the Justice Department. The investigation swelled after UBS, Switzerland's
largest bank, paid $780 million and entered into a deferred-prosecution
agreement, now ended, with U.S. authorities in 2009.
Eleven banks are under
investigation, and dozens of Swiss bankers and American clients have been
indicted in recent years.
The new charges against Bagios assert that he
told one U.S. client to sign UBS documents falsely declaring that the client
was a Malaysian national, not a U.S. citizen.
Bagios and his co-conspirators,
court papers alleged, also told some UBS clients wishing to sneak hidden money
back into the United States that they needed to "wash" their
undisclosed assets back into the banking system, by transferring small,
undetectable amounts into their declared UBS accounts.
The fresh charges asserted that Bagios worked
with a group of co-conspirators. They include Hansruedi Schumacher, a former
top UBS private banker who later worked at Neue Zurcher Bank and was indicted
in the United States in 2009; Renzo Gadola, a former top UBS private banker who
pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy in December 2010; and Martin
Lack, a former top UBS private banker who was indicted in August 2011.
At the time of his arrest in New
York and subsequent transfer to Florida, Bagios was head of Credit Suisse's
Relationship Management West Coast group, a private banking unit, according to
the bank's website.
According to BNA —Officials at
the Internal Revenue Service have made it a priority to expand its continuing
investigations into offshore tax evasion to countries beyond Switzerland, the
chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation division said Oct. 18.
Richard Weber, a career
prosecutor who assumed his IRS post in May, said that in the near future
officials hope to announce charges in pending cases that will allege schemes to
hide offshore assets in countries other than Switzerland and Liechtenstein,
which so far have been the primary focus.
The new cases, Weber said, will
“show additional progress” in cracking down on offshore tax evasion.
“We’ve made it a significant priority to
expand to other countries, and we have agents doing that now,” he told a money
laundering conference sponsored by the Foundation for Accounting Education of
the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.
If you have Unreported Income From
Swiss Banks or are a Swiss Bank Employee under investigation,
contact the Tax Lawyers at Marini & Associates, P.A. for a FREE Tax
Consultation at www.TaxAid.us orwww.TaxLaw.ms or Toll Free at 888-8TaxAid (888
882-9243).
Sources
Reuters
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