EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Swiss Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer Plans to Hand Over Offshore Banking Secrets of the Rich and Famous to WikiLeaks
The offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and corporations - detailing massive potential tax evasion - will be handed over to the WikiLeaks organisation in London tomorrow by the most important and boldest whistleblower in Swiss banking history, Rudolf Elmer, two days before he goes on trial in his native Switzerland.
British and American individuals and companies are among the offshore clients whose details will be contained on CDs presented to WikiLeaks at the Frontline Club in London. Those involved include, Elmer tells the Observer, "approximately 40 politicians".
Elmer, who after his press conference will return to Switzerland from exile in Mauritius to face trial, is a former chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank, which accuses him of stealing the information.
He is also - at a time when the activities of banks are a matter of public concern - one of a small band of employees and executives seeking to blow the whistle on what they see as unprofessional, immoral and even potentially criminal activity by powerful international financial institutions.
Along with the City of London and Wall Street, Switzerland is a fortress of banking and financial services, but famously secretive and expert in the concealment of wealth from all over the world for tax evasion and other extra-legal purposes.
Elmer says he is releasing the information "in order to educate society". The list includes "high net worth individuals", multinational conglomerates and financial institutions - hedge funds". They are said to be "using secrecy as a screen to hide behind in order to avoid paying tax". They come from the US, Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia - "from all over".
Clients include "business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates - from both sides of the Atlantic". Elmer says: "Well-known pillars of society will hold investment portfolios and may include houses, trading companies, artwork, yachts, jewellery, horses, and so on."
"What I am objecting to is not one particular bank, but a system of structures," he told the Observer. "I have worked for major banks other than Julius Baer, and the one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes, and other things such as money-laundering - although these cases involve tax evasion."
Elmer was held in custody for 30 days in 2005, and is charged with breaking Swiss bank secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at Julius Baer.
Elmer says: "I agree with privacy in banking for the person in the street, and legitimate activity, but in these instances privacy is being abused so that big people can get big banking organisations to service them. The normal, hard-working taxpayer is being abused also.
"Once you become part of senior management," he says, "and gain international experience, as I did, then you are part of the inner circle - and things become much clearer. You are part of the plot. You know what the real products and service are, and why they are so expensive. It should be no surprise that the main product is secrecy ... Crimes are committed and lies spread in order to protect this secrecy."
The names on the CDs will not be made public, just as a much shorter list of 15 clients that Elmer handed to WikiLeaks in 2008 has remained hitherto undisclosed by the organisation headed by Julian Assange, currently on bail over alleged sex offences in Sweden, and under investigation in the US for the dissemination of thousands of state department documents.
Elmer has been hounded by the Swiss authorities and media since electing to become a whistleblower, and his health and career have suffered.
"My understanding is that my client's attempts to get the banks to act over various complaints he made came to nothing internally," says Elmer's lawyer, Jack Blum, one of America's leading experts in tracking offshore money. "Neither would the Swiss courts act on his complaints. That's why he went to WikiLeaks."
That first crop of documents was scrutinised by the Guardian newspaper in 2009, which found "details of numerous trusts in which wealthy people have placed capital. This allows them lawfully to avoid paying tax on profits, because legally it belongs to the trust ... The trust itself pays no tax, as a Cayman resident", although "the trustees can distribute money to the trust's beneficiaries".
Now, Blum says, "Elmer is being tried for violating Swiss banking secrecy law even though the data is from the Cayman Islands. This is bold extraterritorial nonsense. Swiss secrecy law should apply to Swiss banks in Switzerland, not a Swiss subsidiary in the Cayman Islands."
Julius Baer has denied all wrongdoing, and rejects Elmer's allegations. It has said that Elmer "altered" documents in order to "create a distorted fact pattern".
The bank issued a statement on Friday saying: "The aim of [Elmer's] activities was, and is, to discredit Julius Baer as well as clients in the eyes of the public. With this goal in mind, Mr Elmer spread baseless accusations and passed on unlawfully acquired, respectively retained, documents to the media, and later also to WikiLeaks. To back up his campaign, he also used falsified documents."
The bank also accuses Elmer of threatening colleagues.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
72 Comments so far
Show Alli'm drooling all over the keyboard.
Bravo, Rudolf Elmer.
Stay safe!
Yeah, he threatened to expose them.
The Congressional Sargent at Arms stated to NPR that most of the people who threaten Congress people are placed in Insane Asylums.
Locally a dissident weapons physicist has been taken into custody after an overnight standoff for failing to present himself to the local insane asylum.
In accurracy of reporting, the physicist was complaining that the bombs are faulty(to thin walled).
yup, the asylum for the "insane" is the gulag of our time. the psychologists and the psychiatrists who have devised torture regimes for the global financial terrorists have infinite lucrative business and human experiments to conduct.
I learned years ago that so many of those in the "helping" professions are actually agents of state control.
Yes and most of the self appointed agents of state control can't wait for some 'law and order' around here.
Nice job, Mr. Elmer!
Give it to those tax cheats!
This is great. I was posting half tongue in cheek that 2011 was going to be a gateway year to a new awakening in 2012. You look at Tunisia and now this and this is the most optimistic I've felt in a good many years.
ditto. surely, Mr. Assange has designed a chess game of the human history, and oppressed peoples around the globe are playing it well up against the ruthlessly criminal global elites.
Agreed. It is a shame that those "lovers of freedom", "architects of democracy", "protectors of civil right", the Americans, are not at the vanguard of this movement, but rather the movement's most vicious and well-funded enemy.
When haven't we been? Seriously. WWII was a fluke. After all, Prescott Bush was banker to the Nazis. That capitalist game spun a little out of control but we came out heroes and snapped up some serious talent for our war machine.
“a little out of control,” “snapped up some serious talent”:
Hilarious, lefty!
The time is ripe for more whistleblowers to step forward in order to destroy the nests of vipers who, with the assistance of the Swiss Banking System, violate the law. These vipers must fully believe they are above the laws made for all those other people such as you and me.
What an opportunity for a full purge of criminal activities at the top, and ideally with justice meted out fairly and properly. That's the ideal outcome obviously. How close to that ideal we'll find out soon enough. Any bets?
Thank you, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning [hang on!], and now Rudolf Elmer.
/cm
" Crimes are committed and lies spread in order to protect their secrecy ". Julius Baer has denied all wrongdoing. You have to know that is another lie!
Bring it on!
While this is a good first step, actually releasing names would be much better.
kw
a lot of information,that should get out, starts to gets buried with Wikileaks
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Open an internet based Cayman Island Trust site like ING or Emigrant where everyone can have a tax free holdings. Let's see how they fund their wars when everyone starts paying minimal taxes. Oh wait, the last part is already happening because of unemployment.
not a bad idea. beat the gangsters in their own game.
at least, don't be a host body to the parasites.
Most of these tax evading schemes have a minimum limit on the money you must have invested.
So, no, for most people, joining them is not feasible.
Hmmmm...
What is the use in whistleblowing or giving evidence to WikiLeaks if the people and corporations in question still remain "undisclosed?"
For the 1st two thirds of the article I was intrigued at the idea that some major players might have to serve some jail time for tax evasion. Looking over it again, it seems as though Assange & Co. have no intention of revealing the info to the public.
The article is odd. It gives explicit details of a meeting and handover that has yet to happen. Even telling where the parties will meet and that the information will be given on CD. This seems imprudent to me. A bit more discretion would be logical considering what is at stake and the vast resources these 2000 individuals & groups have at their disposal. This seems more than a little dangerous to me...
Of course, I watched all 8 seasons of 24, so... heheehe.
"The names on the CDs will not be made public..."
Woopy, you mean money goes off shore to avoid taxes? Your kidding? Is there some news here somewhere? Without names, this is nothing.
Agreed. It's worthless without names.
It's a good chance for investigative journalists to do some digging.
Wait and watch.
Was my point exactly.
Agree, we'll see how this plays out, but this particular leak won't be that informative without disclosing the names of the perpetrators.
I hope that there are no nasty events that prevent this handover from happening.
Maybe the transfer has already taken place and the CD handover is merely for publicity purposes, much like signing treaties etc.
Yes, makes sense.
That must be the case. Otherwise, it is pretty stupid to make the hand-off a public event.
We have always known that international finance was a can of worms, but I never dreamed it would be publicly exposed and unravelled in my lifetime. Let's hope it encourages more whistleblowers to expose the intrinsic evil of financial capitalism.
Yes, there seems to be an emboldening happening now regarding information leaks and people coming forward. Let us hope the damn breaks and it's waters cover the Oligarchy.
Surely some names will be derived from the information.
Hopefully the honorable Mr. Elmer will be acquitted.
The lights come on and the dirty rats try to run away.
There can be no going back.
Onward!
Eh.
I understand why this is "news", but I'm not encouraged by this now-routine kind of story.
I don't scoff at the overall WikiLeaks mission, and believe that Assange and WikiLeaks are legitimate; that is, I'm not persuaded (so far) by claims that WikiLeaks is a disinformation scam or clandestine-agency front in the first place.
But the sensational "teases" are far outrunning, even eclipsing, the actual output. In fact, I'm more inclined to suspect the drip-by-drip avalanche of "pre-release" publicity than the organization itself.
To shoehorn it into a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" metaphor, it's as if gossips kept running into town yelling that The Boy is about to release actual maps showing the location of The Wolf's lair and secret pathways, photographs of The Wolf, etc.
The net effect is more dangerous than the fable's retail climax of the foolish Boy being devoured. Here, the danger is that everyone becomes so enthralled, distracted, fatigued, bored, and eventually stupefied by this loop of piquant Coming Attractions that they're paralyzed or asleep when the Wolf comes trotting by in plain sight and gobbles up all the babies.
Put another way, I find myself deliberately wanting to turn away, as one must make an effort of will to push away the tempting and tasty breadsticks at a restaurant lest one becomes satiated before the entrée is served.
O.S., i've said it before and i'll say it again...You are a writer extraordinaire!
Also, i totally agree with you on this.
I think the key is to separate ourselves from the Wiki-Leaks leaks and the reporting of the Wiki-Leaks leaks. The reporting of the leaks is going to vary from no reporting to sensationalism to attacking the messenger to simple fact telling and thoughtful analysis. The leaked Tunisian cable was fascinating to read as it showed the US Government thought process is maintaining a friendship with the ex-President of Tunisia and the government there. All I've read from M$M on that release was a few sensationalistic highlights of the cable which missed the big picture. These leaks offer us an opportunity to understand in more detail the motors of corruption and deception in our society.
Look at the revolution in Tunisia.
The power of facts. Simple as they seem, they are real transactions that are far reaching in the right hands.
By the reactions in the above posts, I see some daylight coming into the darkness. We are pretty good at seeing in the dark; we always knew this kind of stuff was going on.
This just documents it.
repeat of above
And will we be allowed to see this? Or will Wikileaks' media gatekeepers like The Guardian and the NYT protect the guilty parties by redacting the details that really count?
Now that Wikileaks has (in hip hop parlance) blown up, it is interesting and ironic that the bank secrecy leak that made its' name, Bank Julius Baer, is back on the front burner.
What Rudolf Elmer exposed and is now being prosecuted for is the duplicitous conduct of elites who have the rest of us live by one set of rules...and have us pay for what keeps them in their position, while flouting it themselves. Exposing this basic unfairness must continue, and Wikileaks is doing this.
I've long been irritated by the Swiss and their banking secrecy. Their 'neutrality' is legendary, but that neutrality is wrapped in the idea that unregulated capitalism is always of UTMOST importance. They don't give a crap how much blood or evil is associated with the money.
No, their neutrality is wrapped in the idea of selfishness. Of parasitism.
Capitalism IN Switzerland is regulated. Switzerland (highly) regulates the behaviour of Swiss banks in Switzerland, it regulates the services (ie tax evasion) that Swiss banks can offer Swiss nationals.
Conversely, it protects those Swiss banks when they offer tax evasion services to non Swiss nationals.
Switzerland has always been a parasite of a nation, in the past, in the medieval era, it was mercenaries to fight wars in other countries; nowadays it is tax evasion and money laundering.
I wonder if the thievery of the churches will be exposed this time.
Morticia, i hadn't even 'gone there'.....I am hoping now!!!!
In the war diaries, redacting names was a measure to protect innocent informants. The corporate execs and rock stars who will be protected here are merely tax evaders. Name them all!
The following words in Mr. Vulliamy's piece caught my eye:
"Elmer has been hounded by the Swiss authorities and media since electing to become a whistleblower, and his health and career have suffered.
"'My understanding is that my client's attempts to get the banks to act over various complaints he made came to nothing internally,'" says Elmer's lawyer, Jack Blum, one of America's leading experts in tracking offshore money. "'Neither would the Swiss courts act on his complaints. That's why he went to WikiLeaks.'"
Of course Net Neutrality faces overwhelming opposition by corporate egoists who believe themselves masters of the universe and that the middle and lower classes "chose" or "deserve" what deprivations they have.
The truth is that money talks and only the rich can be heard in U.S. courts, so the little people have turned to Wikileaks and the Internet while they still can. My own attempts to get Sol Zepnick to pay $1,400 he owes me for work done on his self-published peon to the greatness of lawyers have fallen on deaf ears or made impossible by the logistics of getting to court for an unemployed man. Once you become unemployed, the wealthy drop you like a hot potato. You are of no use to them. "Close" friends for nine years in the legal field, such as Cary Peynolds, Posh Jeck, or Schil Phatz don't need you, after pursuing you to pad their treasure chests. It's the corporate inhumanity of "Nothing personal, you understand, it's just business." No, I don't understand. As Obama said after the recent shooting in Arizona, we must speak civilly and verbal abuse cuts as deep as physical abuse. When the Internet--you can bet your business on it--no longer is in play for middle and lower classes to let off steam, they will stew in front of their TV sets watching a U.S. broadcast system that has turned into the one I saw in 1987 on a trip to Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad: only three stations on every TV set--Soviet-written news, classical music, and soccer.
I'd be careful about quoting Oblahblah. The man don't mean what he says. I asked Mama how can I tell when my man is lying. She said 'Whenever his lips are movin'.'
Dear U.S. government, especially the IRS and the "off with their heads" congress people and all the world wide imploding governments too;
Maybe you all are not broke, and the real 99 percenters, those suffering in all of the countries will not need to pay with the skin off of their backs, since their shirts were taken long ago.
Hiding from paying taxes were you? HOW UNPATRIOTIC of you, and too, you do underermine your own nations...... financial terrorists should be tried in every country. I wonder if Bernie still has some money in there?
I wonder too how many corporations that have moved jobs off shore have then placed all of their money in secret accounts? Have they perhaps been double dipping and taking TAX BREAKS at the same time? YOU have been totally misusing the concept of "Land of the Free" haven't you?
Banks of the world, did you put that TARP money there instead of using it to build up YOUR OWN COUNTRY?
Congress people, I think if you want to OFF some heads, then you have been looking in the wrong direction. Of course, for some of you, the HEADS you called for could be your own. Karma, karma, karma!
I wonder how much of Goldman Sachs' booty is there?
Mr.. Elmer, there are very few world wide heroes that can impact so many people at the same time and in a positive way too. Thank you!
Governments. DON'T you dare start cutting the monies that make survivable the lives of the PEOPLE of all nations. When the dust has settled, it will be time for major housecleaning, and may the many dust covered Cinderellas of ALL the world ( nations and people) dance at the TRUTH ball forever!
Yes, I am being optimistic, but Grand Jury in the state of Virginia, out with the old star chamber and onto the real work. If you don't act on this REAl need to investigate U.S. citizens and corporations that are the REAL ISSUE, then we know for sure that the government "of, by, and for the people" has disappeared from the face of the Earth.
I wonder if Clinton, Cheney, Bush and Obama have accounts?
Maybe Pelosi and Reid, too.
Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.
Definitely the richest ones do. For me, the first person that comes to mind is Diane "War Forever to Enrich My Husband's Bank Account" Feinstein. Just watch the ones who are supporters of the wars and the Terror/Industrial Complex. They're the ones with money up the ying-yang and don't want to pay a cent in taxes. Chertoff with his body scans and execs who let the government spy on us. The list is endless. They've sucked the money out of the Treasury and I do hope they're all exposed.