Navigation

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

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.

This content was published on January 17, 2021 - 13:52
Keystone-SDA/SMD/SonntagsZeitung/ilj

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.

In compliance with the JTI standards

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

Change your password

Do you really want to delete your profile?

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.

Discover our weekly must-reads for free!

Sign up to get our top stories straight into your mailbox.

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.