Ex Credit Suisse banker pleads guilty in tax evasion in USA

Former Credit Suisse banker pleaded guilty to helping American citizens to defraud the IRS while working for the Swiss Institute between 2002 and 2009. The declaration, which took place in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia, was made by an Italian citizen 48-year-old resident in Switzerland who confessed to having helped some taxpayers to hide part of their assets in Swiss bank accounts, as the Ministry of American Justice (DoJ) reports in a press release.

The former employee also acknowledged that he administered a portfolio worth about 700 million dollars (664 million francs), money mostly belonging to residents of the West Coast of the United States. It assessed the earnings lost by the US tax authorities between 1.5 and 3.5 million dollars.

The defendant faces a sentence of up to five years in prison, in addition to having to pay damages and interest, according to the DoJ. Already in march 2015 two former employees of Credit Suisse had been convicted of a similar offense.

The second largest Swiss bank admitted in late May 2014, it had voluntarily counseled and helped American clients to defraud the IRS. The Swiss bank on that occasion paid $ 2.6 billion to adjust the litigation.