UPDATE:Swiss Prosecutor:Person In Custody Over Stolen Bank Data
2011年1月22日 - 3:18AM
Dow Jones News
The Swiss prosecutor said Friday it has taken one person into
custody as part of an investigation into data allegedly stolen from
Swiss bank Credit Suisse Group (CS) and later sold to German
officials.
Zurich-based Credit Suisse declined to comment.
The arrest comes nearly one year after a major bank data theft
involving German clients of Swiss banks became public and several
months after a man suspected of stealing the data and selling it
was found dead in his Swiss prison cell in an apparent suicide. The
federal prosecutor, which doesn't mention Credit Suisse
specifically in its statement, didn't elaborate on what the
relationship between the person in custody and the deceased might
have been.
"The current probe demands further investigational measures
constantly. We cannot comment in detail at the moment."
The investigation comes as Switzerland faces intense
international scrutiny over its banking-secrecy laws, which many
governments believe encourage tax evasion.
In 2009, Switzerland partly succumbed to pressure and loosened
secrecy laws, without giving them up altogether.
As part of the efforts by German authorities to crack down on
alleged tax evaders, who are believed by German officials to hold
around EUR175 billion in assets in Switzerland, offices of Credit
Suisse Group had been searched in Germany last summer. Credit
Suisse said last year that it believes it "has been the victim of a
data theft." The bank since filed criminal charges against the
individuals who committed the data theft.
Germany's dogged pursuit of several cases has led to tensions
with Switzerland, which has said it won't cooperate with criminal
investigations that are based on evidence that was stolen from
Swiss banks. Since then, the two countries have agreed to begin
talks to hammer out tax pacts, which include a withholding tax on
investment income of Germans clients with Swiss accounts and
transferring the tax receipts to the German authorities.
-By Katharina Bart, Dow Jones Newswires; +41 43 443 8043;
katharina.bart@dowjones.com