DealBook: U.S. Tax Evasion Case Touches Julius Baer

Peter Frommenwiler/Bloomberg NewsJulius Baer’s headquarters Zurich.

PARIS — A tax evasion investigation in the United States has reached Julius Baer, a spokesman for the Swiss lender confirmed Wednesday, a day after the government charged two advisers with conspiring to help clients evade American taxes on more than $600 million hidden in offshore accounts.

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Charles R. Pine, an Internal Revenue Service investigator, announced the indictment of Daniela Casadei and Fabio Frazzetto on Tuesday, without identifying the bank by name. Martin Somogyi, a Julius Baer spokesman, confirmed that “one current and one former employee” had been indicted, but said he could not comment further.

Julius Baer “is one of a number of Swiss financial institutions supporting the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Switzerland and is cooperating with the U.S. government investigation,” the bank said.

An attempt to reach the two through Julius Baer’s Zurich headquarters was unsuccessful. A call to the switchboard was transferred to a woman who, declining to identify herself, said the two were not available to speak Wednesday and declined to comment further.

According to the indictment, Ms. Casadei and Mr. Frazzetto “allegedly advised U.S. taxpayer-clients to open undeclared accounts under code or fictional names.” The two defendants “also allegedly advised clients not to worry about U.S. law enforcement authorities,” the indictment states, because the bank “no longer had offices on U.S. soil.”

Daniel Barry for The New York TimesPreet S. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

The Justice Department has targeted a number of banks over tax evasion in recent years, most notably UBS, the largest Swiss lender. UBS agreed in 2009 to pay $780 million and hand over some client names to end criminal proceedings. The department’s offshore compliance initiative currently has ongoing criminal investigations at eight banks, according to an apparently inadvertent disclosure last month.

Julius Baer, though dwarfed by institutions like UBS and Credit Suisse, has a large international presence, particularly in Asia. Its deals mainly with wealthy private clients, family offices and asset managers.

The indictment Tuesday alleged that the two advisers helped to conceal their clients’ ownership of bank accounts collectively holding more than $600 million by opening and managing them under fictional names or under the name of non-U.S. relatives or sham corporate entities.

Ms. Casadei and Mr. Frazzetto, both residents of Switzerland, according to the indictment, face up to five years in prison and fines of $250,000 or more if they are convicted of the charges.

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