Wegelin Company, the oldest Swiss bank, confirmed on Wednesday that three of its employees had been indicted by prosecutors in New York for helping United States taxpayers to hide more than $1.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.
The bank “acknowledges the U.S. justice authorities’ decision to press charges against three of its employees,” the company said in a statement. It said “the employees concerned have taken on other tasks within the bank,” adding that all dealings with American clients had been ended.
On Tuesday, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, announced the indictment of three men “who sought to to capture business lost by UBS and another large international Swiss bank” after the I.R.S.’s pursuit of the banks became public in 2008.
Prosecutors said that the three employees had told American clients not to worry about the I.R.S. because their bank “had a long tradition of bank secrecy,” adding that they had advised “their U.S. taxpayer-clients that the bank was less vulnerable to United States law enforcement pressure because, unlike UBS, the bank did not have offices outside Switzerland.”
Senior managers of the bank, which is based in Saint Gallen, “participated in some of these sales pitches to U.S. taxpayer-clients who were fleeing UBS,” prosecutors said.
The bank did not address the substance of the indictment in its statement. Albena Björck, a spokeswoman for the bank, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Wegelin Company remains committed to assisting in the clarification of matters regarding former U.S. clients and has authorized its lawyers in the United States to negotiate with the U.S. justice authorities to the extent possible under Swiss law,” its statement said.
The three, identified by prosecutors as Michael Berlinka, 41, Urs Frei, 51, and Roger Keller, 47, are accused of helping to set up dozens of secret accounts at “Swiss Bank A,” where they worked in Zurich as advisers, as well as helping clients to ‘‘to hide from the I.R.S. both the existence of certain Swiss bank accounts, as well as the income they generated.” Prosecutors did not identify Wegelin by name.
If convicted, the three men, who live in Switzerland, face maximum prison terms of five years each, and fines of up to $250,000, prosecutors said.
UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, paid $780 million and turned over details about thousands of client accounts to end prosecution. Both UBS and the other ‘”large Swiss bank’” had stopped helping American taxpayers avoid taxes after authorities turned up the heat, the prosecutors noted.
The United States has been waging a concerted battle to rein in tax evasion through Switzerland, the world capital of offshore accounts because of its tradition of banking secrecy. Officials in Washington are pursuing criminal charges against 11 Swiss institutions in an effort to bring about a comprehensive agreement to ensure Americans cannot hide money in Swiss banks.
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