The Swiss bank Credit Suisse withheld information about bank accounts linked to Nazis. The US Senate Budget Committee wrote this down on Saturday a press releaseafter US Ombudsman Neil Barofsky provided an interim update on the state of the investigation into the bank, which started in 2021. Credit Suisse was acquired by Swiss UBS in 2023.
A new investigation has uncovered tens of thousands of documents containing evidence of account holders linked to the Nazi party. These include alleged middlemen who helped Nazis hide gold. They also helped to conceal illegal transactions to purchase war materials and loot Jewish property.
“Our research has yielded more than just stones; we found boulders. Credit Suisse hid additional evidence of Nazi ties for years and even attempted to hide information from our congressional investigation,” U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley said in the release.
Bank employees are said to have found the incriminating archive documents in the 1990s, when research was also being conducted into the relationship between the bank and the Nazi regime. The bank then reportedly decided not to transfer the archive documents to the researchers.
Even without the relevant archive documents, researchers concluded in the 1990s that the Swiss bank allowed the theft of Jewish assets by Nazis. Survivors of the war who wanted their belongings back were also opposed. In 1998, the bank settled for $1.3 billion with Holocaust survivors who had filed a lawsuit, the ANP news agency reported.
Removed from research
Credit Suisse commissioned ombudsman Barofsky to conduct a new independent investigation in 2021 after the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, came across information about account holders active within Hitler’s party.
After interviews with employees who worked at Credit Suisse in the 1990s, Barofsky concluded that the bank had withheld information. The American was subsequently removed from the investigation because the bank managers thought the research results were of little significance and Barofsky allegedly violated agreements, writes The Wall Street Journal. Subsequently, the budget committee became involved in the matter.
After Credit Suisse was rescued from bankruptcy by UBS in 2023, Barofsky’s name was cleared. The American was allowed to continue the investigation. Recently, investigators found customer files in the bank’s archives stamped “U.S. Blacklist,” the newspaper said.
“The investigation has identified numerous individuals and legal entities associated with Nazi atrocities whose relationships with Credit Suisse had not previously been established, or whose relationships had been partially established […],” states Barofsky. He expects to present a final report in 2026. UBS indicates that it will cooperate fully.