Credit Suisse, a Swiss multinational investment bank, and financial services company, is in the spotlight once again this time for failing to disclose more than 100 accounts linked to Nazis.
These accounts raise questions about Credit Suisse’s potential support for the secret networks that defeated Germans used to flee Europe after 1945. The probe began in march 2020 when the Simon Wiesenthal Center claimed to have credible information about accounts potentially holding money looted from Jews during the holocaust.
Investigation into the matter found 70 accounts with plausible links to Nazis, fourteen of which were still open as recently as this year. Credit Suisse then hired a forensic research firm and a former federal prosecutor to act independently review the accounts.
However, there are concerns over the bank’s “unnecessarily rigid and narrow scope” when investigating the secret networks, citing that they did not allow for legal entities or names identified by books on the ratlines outside of their geographical restrictions. In response, Credit Suisse has agreed to investigate its potential role in these networks following pressure from the US senate.
