Economic prosecutors raided the branch of UBS Swisss bank in Athens, confiscated the bank archives and identified 200 bank accounts involved in tax evasion. According to Greek media, the cross-check of the bank accounts was based on the data Greek authorities have recently received by the German Federal State of Northrhine-Westphalia.
According to news portal Liberal.gr that revealed the news:
“The economic prosecutors raided the UBS branch and the home of a broker who works together with the bank. They confiscated computer hard drives, archives and files and seized data with ban account numbers, account holders’ names and deposits amounts.
Working in a frenzy mode, the prosecutors managed to identify within 24 hours at least 150 big scale depositors, with the minimum amount found in deposits to be €1.5 million and the largest is €12 million. Where there were no amounts, the prosecutors reportedly compared with the account numbers featured in the list with 10,000 bank account numbers given by the Germans.”
Liberal.gr reports that the raid and the confiscations reveal depositors who cannot justify the amounts but also “common ‘bankers’ i.e. persons who transferred money outside Greece and deposited in offshore companies thus deleting the traces of the money or they invested it. These persons (3-4) are the same persons who first appeared in connection with the Siemens scandal, in tax evaders’ lists but also in the armaments scandals.”
The economic prosecutors are reportedly about to send notifications to the account holders and ask them to “appear before the prosecutors” claiming even favorable treatment if they cooperate.
According to To Vima Online:
“Last week, officers monitoring the offices watched a bank employee to carry a black suitcase with documents, accounts, and other interesting evidence. A raid in her home followed as well to the homes of three other employees who were handling the accounts of “high profile” bank customers with millions of euro.
According to reliable sources, […] the data obtained refer to the years 2013 and 2015 and that “individuals and companies were channeling undeclared assets to the Swiss bank.”
One of the bank employees cooperated with the authorities after she was threatened with arrest.”
It is estimated, that thorough investigation of the German list with more than 10,000 bank accounts of potential tax evaders could bring the Greek state some 2 billion euro in revenues.
“End November, the German Federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia handed out to Greece files containing more than 10,588 data – that is, numbers of Swiss bank accounts – of suspected tax dodgers. The data is from one Swiss bank but the name had not been revealed. The data on tax evaders was reportedly bought by NRW back in 2010 from Swiss authorities. The hand out was made in order to help Greece to crack down tax evasion.
Greek media report that the list handed out by the Germans apparently contains “assets worth 3.9billion Swiss Francs in 2006 and assets worth 2.9billion Swiss Francs in 2008.” (more here)
For Greeks, the German list is called “The Borjans-List” after the name of NRW’s Finance Minister.
more sources on UBS raid here and here
PS Raiding a bank branch is not something that happens every day. I still do not understand what was the legal base for raiding a bank branch, what made the prosecutor to issue a raid order. Something like “the bank did not cooperate with authorities”? We may find out later… BTW I did not know that the UBS had a branch here.
