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Switzerland Charges Credit Suisse Over ‘Tuna Bond’ Scandal

Swiss federal prosecutors on Monday disclosed charges against Credit Suisse, its current owner UBS, and a former compliance officer over anti-money laundering-related failures connected to a major corruption and fraud scheme in Mozambique.

The Zurich-headquartered lender in 2013 and 2014 helped three Mozambican state-owned enterprises obtain more than $2 billion in loans to finance projects to modernize the country’s fishing facilities. Although the initiative never materialized, it enabled corrupt bankers and local officials to pocket more than $130 million in bribes.

Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General on Monday charged Credit Suisse with failing to prevent money laundering due to “organizational deficiencies,” noting that the bank only reported its money laundering suspicions to MROS, the country’s financial intelligence unit, in 2019, after U.S. prosecutors unsealed charges against three former Credit Suisse bankers.

Prosecutors also disclosed money laundering charges against an unidentified former compliance officer who had been tasked with investigating a suspicious $7 million transfer from a Mozambican state entity into a corporate account at Credit Suisse in 2016. The funds were immediately transferred to the United Arab Emirates.

“Despite numerous indications pointing to a potentially illicit origin of the funds from Mozambique, the compliance officer recommended to … management not to alert [MROS], but rather to terminate the business relationship.”

Credit Suisse agreed to pay U.S. and British authorities $475 million in penalties in October 2021 to resolve linked criminal and regulatory investigations into its role in the corruption scandal.

 

Moneylaundering.com may update this coverage as more information becomes available.
Topics : Anti-money laundering
Source: Switzerland
Document Date: December 1, 2025