The Tax Times: America’s Most-Wanted Swiss Bankers Aren’t Hard to Find

Thursday, April 16, 2015

America’s Most-Wanted Swiss Bankers Aren’t Hard to Find

America’s Most-Wanted Swiss Bankers Aren’t Hard to Find bloom.bg - With its tan marble floors and leather-clad reception desk, the staid Zurich offices of the Julius Baer Group, one of Switzerland’s largest private banks, are an unlikely place to find an alleged fugitive from American justice. And yet it’s here that I meet Fabio Frazzetto.

Almost four years ago a federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted Frazzetto, a longtime client adviser for the bank, charging him with conspiring to help dozens of wealthy Americans conceal hundreds of millions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service by using undeclared accounts, code names, and foreign relatives.

Some of the biggest Swiss banks, such as Credit Suisse, have turned over few names of customers with undeclared accounts.

Swiss authorities, however, have refused to hand over any bankers and the U.S. hasn’t asked for them.

At least 21 financial advisers in Switzerland under U.S. indictment remain at large, making them fugitives in the eyes of the American government. Their acts aren’t considered crimes under Swiss law, so the country won’t extradite or prosecute them. Several still work in the Swiss financial industry, offering tax advice and other services. Some still have U.S. clients.

We previously posted More Swiss Banks Are Striking Deals With the DoJ Including Providing Your Tax Information! where we discussed that more Swiss banks that helped wealthy Americans evade taxes will soon strike agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid prosecution and turn over the names of their US Depositors.

As a result of leads from banks involved in the voluntary disclosure program, Ciraolo said, the Justice Department is going after individual account holders as well as bankers and other professionals who helped conceal offshore accounts.

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