U.S. Justice Department indicts Swiss bank Wegelin

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dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
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www.alienbabeltech.com
Hmmm, wonder if this has any teeth and what it will mean and do in the long term or end result.

The rich have been getting away with laundering their money forever.

Looks like they got busted by sending checks less than $10,000

The Website and phoney names didn't help either.

How many rich Republican P&Ners have been caught up in this?

What about Romney?

2-3-2012

http://news.yahoo.com/u-justice-dep...BzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3

U.S. Justice Department indicts Swiss bank Wegelin



The United States indicted Wegelin, the oldest Swiss private bank, on charges that it enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes on at least $1.2 billion hidden in offshore bank accounts, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

The announcement, by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, represents the first time an overseas bank has been indicted by the United States for enabling tax fraud by U.S. taxpayers.

The indictment also accused Wegelin of helping two unnamed Swiss banks "repatriate undeclared funds to their own U.S. taxpayer-clients by issuing checks drawn on Wegelin's Stamford correspondent account." The transfers were separated into chunks below the $10,000 threshold at which such transfers are reported to the IRS.

* Wegelin recruited U.S. clients through a website, www.SwissPrivateBank.com, that was run by an unidentified third party. The website boasted there that "Swiss bank secrecy is not lifted for tax evasion ... Neither the Swiss government nor any other government can obtain information about your bank account." Unlike the United States, Switzerland generally does not consider tax evasion to be a crime.


* Wegelin gave accounts special names, including "Elvis" and "Limpopo Foundation." The charges detailed the bank's work for nearly three dozen American clients, known only as clients A through JJ.


* Wegelin encouraged clients not to come forward to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and disclose their names in exchange for reduced penalties. Clients who did so in recent years helped provide the Justice Department with a roadmap to the inner workings of Wegelin - a map that led to the bank's indictment.
 

ichy

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2006
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Wow that is brazen, i forsee many people going to jail.

If they didn't violate any Swiss laws then I don't see anyone going to jail, nor should they. Companies that operate in a foreign country are under no obligation to help the United States government enforce its tax laws.
 

halik

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Oct 10, 2000
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If they didn't violate any Swiss laws then I don't see anyone going to jail, nor should they. Companies that operate in a foreign country are under no obligation to help the United States government enforce its tax laws.

From the article it sounds like these were people operating a branch in the US.
 

ichy

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2006
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From the article it sounds like these were people operating a branch in the US.

Because Wegelin has no branches outside Switzerland, it used correspondent banking services, a standard industry practice, to handle money for U.S.-based clients.

It sounds like their ability to do business in the United States is over, but other than seizing any assets they have in the US I don't know what the DOJ thinks they can do.
 
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