Financial Times – Two bankers, including a former employee of UBS, the world’s leading wealth manager, have been charged by US authorities with helping a American billionaire evade income taxes on about $200m of assets deposited in Swiss and Liechtenstein bank accounts.
Bradley Birkenfeld, Mario Staggl and “others known and unknown” were accused in the indictment, unsealed on Tuesday, of conspiring to defraud the US from at least 2001 by engaging in a scheme that included falsifying documents, helping to set up shell companies and destroying banking records.
Mr Birkenfeld, who appeared in court on Tuesday, is a former UBS private banker, based in Geneva, who became involved in a legal dispute with his former employer over the terms of his employment and compensation, the Financial Times has learnt. The indictment said he was a US citizen who had lived in Switzerland since 1996. Mr Birkenfeld was formerly a member of the team headed by Martin Liechti, one of the most senior private bankers at UBS. The FT identified Mr Liechti as the person recently detained by authorities in the US investigating whether the Swiss bank had helped US clients evade US tax obligations.
