Swiss prosecutors investigate Geneva private bank over Brazilian ‘Car Wash’ probe
A woman holds a placard ["Car Wash I support you"] during a rally in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to show support for the Java Lato ["Car Wash"] corruption investigation, September 6, 2020.
Keystone / Fernando Bizerra
Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Geneva-based Banque Cramer & Cie as part of a wider corruption probe into Brazilian state oil company Petrobras and construction firm Odebrecht.
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MP suíço investiga banco privado de Genebra envolvido na Lava a Jato
The Swiss Attorney General’s office (MPC) confirmed on Thursday that it had around 40 criminal proceedings pending in the Petrobras-Odebrecht affair, of which three are against financial institutions in Switzerland. The latest is against Banque Cramer & Cie, it told AFP on Thursday, confirming an earlier report by online site Gotham City.
The probe was opened on July 1 based on information “resulting from other criminal proceedings” in the context of this vast Brazilian scandal.
The prosecutor’s office said it suspected a “lack of internal organisation within the bank that would not have enabled it to prevent the commission of the money laundering offence”.
In February 2018, Switzerland’s financial regulator found Lugano-headquartered PKB private bank guilty of breaching money laundering rules in relation to the Petrobras and Odebrecht Brazilian corruption scandal. The bank was ordered to hand over CHF1.3 million ($1.4 million) in illicitly gained assets.
A Swiss court in February 2020 handed down its first Swiss conviction relating to the Brazilian Petrobras-Odebrecht scandal. A Swiss-Brazilian man was found guilty of complicity in bribing foreign agents and of money laundering offences in Switzerland, Brazil and Portugal.
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