Italian fraud investigation targets Swiss bank

Banca Fideuram and its Swiss subsidiary are at the centre of the inquiry Keystone

Italian police say they have smashed an illegal money trafficking network between Italy and Switzerland, involving one of their country’s biggest banks.

Around 100 officials at the Banca Fideuram have been placed under investigation, as well as nine of the bank’s clients, among them former Italian football star Franco Baresi.

Dozens of financial advisers were allegedly involved in providing services through a Swiss subsidiary of the Banca Fideuram in order to avoid tax regulations.

Italian investigators claim €23 million ($28 million) was illegally deposited in Switzerland.

The cash was allegedly handled by Fideuram’s Swiss branch – five of its employees are among those being investigated.

Seven of the bank’s clients are also under investigation for money laundering.

Banca Fideuram, which has branches in Zurich and Lugano, has denied it breached regulations and said it would cooperate with investigators.

Abused

Some Italian politicians claim the Banca Fideuram case is the latest proof that a tax amnesty on savings held abroad – launched in 2001 by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government – is being abused.

“This was to be expected. We said that the tax amnesty would lead to this,” said Giorgio Benvenuto, a member of the Italian parliament’s finance commission.

It is thought that some of the money which came to Switzerland was legally repatriated into Italy under the tax amnesty.

According to Benvenuto, the millions uncovered so far are just the tip of the iceberg.

“There’s an American saying that if you find a cockroach in a house, there’s also certainly a nest there as well,” Benvenuto told swissinfo.

It has been reported that the money was either smuggled into Switzerland or transferred to accounts using sophisticated computer programmes.

Police say the funds were subsequently invested in Switzerland or simply repatriated under cover of the tax amnesty.

Tip-off

Benvenuto says the case came to light following a tip-off from a Fideuram client to Consob, the banking regulatory body.

He says one of the biggest problems with the tax amnesty is that it is difficult to know where the money has come from thanks to an anonymity clause

“We are afraid that organised crime, which knows all about finance, has discovered the cracks in the amnesty process and is profiting from it,” Benvenuto told swissinfo.

Giuseppe Lama, the former president of Italy’s anti-Mafia commission, is calling for the government to re-examine the tax amnesty.

In a recent newspaper interview, he stated that “if it was possible for Fideuram financial advisers to send ‘cleaned’ money from Switzerland, why shouldn’t this be possible for the mafia?”

swissinfo, Paolo Bertossa in Rome

Key facts

92 financial advisers as well as five officials from Banca Fideuram are under investigation.
Five are members of the Swiss branch.
Nine of the bank’s clients are also being investigated.
Italian police say €23 million was deposited in Switzerland.