May.06, 2010
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Former Zurich private banker Oskar Holenweger, investigated by Swiss police for seven years, has been indicted on money laundering charges linked to French engineering firm Alstom. The case spilled across borders in 2007 to Alstom’s French and UK offices, where police have investigated the company for using its Swiss subsidiary as a funnel for bribe money, reportedly some CHF70 million a year.
The Swiss Justice Department announced the charges Thursday 6 May, saying that it is dropping earlier investigations into money laundering linked to drug trafficking, which triggered suspicions about Holenweger at the start. It admitted that the case has taken far too long to reach the courts and that it was a stroke of luck, finding a document from KPMG that brought to the surface a possible link with a large French industrial company.
The accused will now go before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona to face several charges:
fraud, mismanagement linked to bribes, money laundering for the French company, laundering of money whose source he knew to be drug-trafficking and using money for corrupt purposes.
He also faces charges of bribing foreign public officials. The drug money-laundering charge stems from a police plant, an agent who approached Holenweger, but it is not yet clear if this part of the case will be admitted.
Le Temps reports that the amount in question for money-laundering for Alstom is some CHF9 million, although federal officials are not confirming this.
Holenweger, who spent a month in prison at the start of the investigation, has had a long and highly public fall from grace since his days heading the Tempus Bank in Zurich: he was a Swiss army buddy of Christoph Blocher, who in late 2008 lost his seat on the Swiss federal councilor, in part over a political scandal linked to the Holenweger affair. And an old friend is Christoph Moergeli, closely aligned to Blocher. Blocher was the powerful leader of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party who forced the resignation of the Swiss judge who had been handling the Holenweger case, Valentin Roschacher.