The Switzerland-based bank rejects the allegations and insinuations about its purported business practices after media outlets across five continents published the results of coordinated investigations into the data.
The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it received the data anonymously through a secure digital mailbox, spending months evaluating alongside the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and its media partners.
The newspaper said the data – which ranges from the 1940s until well into the last decade – points to the bank having accepted corrupt autocrats, suspected war criminals, and human traffickers, drug dealers and other criminals as customers.
According to the OCCRP, accounts identified by journalists as potentially problematic held over USD 8 billion in assets and belonged to individuals including intelligence officials implicated in torture, bureaucrats accused of looting Venezuela’s oil wealth, and a host of corrupt politicians from across the world.
The bank said it had received numerous inquiries from the consortium in the past three weeks and reviewed many of the accounts in question.
The leak represents the latest in a series of setbacks for the bank, including a money laundering trial.
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