Money laundering

India and Switzerland signed an automatic exchange of financial information deal which complements govt’s crackdown on black money. This means that the option of concealing the illegal wealth through Swiss banks is most likely to be closed. This historical move directly complements govt’s demonetization move to target domestic black money.

The ‘Joint Declaration’ for implementation of AEOI signed on Tuesday between India and Switzerland provides that both countries will start collecting data in accordance with the global standards in 2018 and exchange it from 2019 onwards.

French authorities said on Thursday they are investigating 560 taxpayers over tax evasion based on information garnered in the leaked Panama Papers. They confirmed a report in Le Monde, one of the papers that broke the Panama Papers story along with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in April.

Tax investigators around the world have spent months delving into the 11.5 million confidential documents leaked in April after Panamanian law office Mossack Fonseca’s computers had been hacked.

A Singapore court jailed Yak Yew Chee on Friday, a former banker who handled Swiss bank BSI’s relationship with state investor 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) for 18 weeks for forgery and failure to disclose suspicious transactions, as Reuters referred.

The Government of Equatorial Guinea accused "French lobby groups, with the complicity of Swiss media and institutions," of conspiring in "a false and wholly negative media campaign" against the country’s Vice-President, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.
In a statement released on Monday night, the government condemned actions by France and Switzerland that it said were designed to influence the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague as it deliberates over the case brought by Equatorial Guinea against France.

Yeo Jiawei, former private banker, went on trial in Singapore on Monday in the first prosecution of suspects linked to a massive international money-laundering scandal centred on Malaysian state fund 1MDB.
State prosecutors described the sums involved as “staggering” and said Yeo allegedly pocketed $18.7 million.
Yeo, 33, did so through various means, including “illicit” schemes to swindle his own bank, added prosecutors, who accused him of playing a central role in the “most complex, sophisticated and largest” money-laundering case that the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) has ever come across, as the written statement issued at the trial reported.

Italy will also get information on bank accounts abroad next year, thanks to agreements with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The deal allows to the Italian tax authorities not to wait that taxpayers, with cash and assets deposited abroad, regularize their position. In order to hunt down the cash, the tax agency is preparing collective data requests.

It means that the Italian authorities will ask and get the data of the Italian customers who have opened a foreign bank account. As pointed out by the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, authorities "won’t stop to Switzerland only, due to the fact that the agreements signed in 2015 will offer new opportunities."

Swiss prosecutors have begun a preliminary investigation into Teodorin Nguema Obiang, the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea, who is set to go on trial in France for alleged misspending of public funds, as the Switzerland’s 24 Heures newspaper reported Tuesday. The Swiss Federal Office of Justice confirmed it had sent a judicial request to French authorities seeking support for its probe of Obiang.

He is accused of acquiring real estate, luxury cars, art and other goods in France with public funds from the native country. Geneva prosecutor’s office spokesman declined further comment about the investigation.

Credit Suisse is ready to write a €100 million check to the Italian Revenue Agency to close the tax dispute with Italy, as Reuters reported by a source with knowledge of the dossier. The bank, through a spokesman, answered with a "no comment". The Swiss banking group has been at the center of an investigation conducted by the prosecutor Gaetano Ruta, of Milan prosecutors, for violation of the Law 231/2001 on the liability of companies for crimes committed by their employees, and also for tax fraud, money laundering, obstacle to the supervisory authority and illegal.