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Paper: billions of Venezuelan ‘suspicious funds’ in Swiss banks

picture of 1000chf
Billions of Swiss francs are thought to be the banks © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Swiss officials have found around CHF9 billion ($10 billion) linked to Venezuela on hundreds of bank accounts in Switzerland, Le Matin Dimanche reports.

It says that this makes Venezuela “the largest source of suspicious funds in Swiss banks”.

The newspaper says this has been confirmed by a series of investigations opened in Zurich in autumn 2019. A version of the article also appears online in the SonntagsZeitungExternal link.

Le Matin DimancheExternal link said the money had come from embezzled public funds in Venezuela and quoted a Zurich police spokesman as saying that the money had been spread over hundreds of accounts in around 30 banks.

This would mean that one in eight Swiss banks would be affected, the newspaper said.

The Zurich public prosecutors’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Bloomberg saidExternal link.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR