tagged w/ Swiss Banks
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"The hacker battle cry of “free” information reflects either ignorance of value and ownership, or active hostility to those concepts".
[ me ] ;
-DEATH TO PARASITES.
Uhm,....yes,....I think "actively hostile" sums it up.
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CNN reports that “whistle-blowing” Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed the banking information of two thousand clients over to WikiLeaks. The website says it will be able to “process” and release this information in “a matter of weeks.” Elmer is facing charges for violating Swiss banking secrecy regulations.
Elmer describes himself as an “activist/reformer/banker” who decided the Swiss banking system was “damaging our society in the way money was moved.” He’s never been able to get government authorities or universities interested in the data he pilfered from the banks, so he hit on the idea of handing it over to WikiLeaks.
Once again, we see a lone “activist” violating the property and privacy rights of many others, in the belief his wisdom transcends the judgment of those he could never convince to act upon his stolen data. I’m second to none in my criticism of hidebound government bureaucracies… but where, exactly, do the Swiss go to vote against Rudolf Elmer or WikiLeaks, if they disagree with their notions of secrecy or transparency?
Are we supposed to believe that all 2000 of the accounts Elmer gave WikiLeaks belong to evil villains conspiring to dominate the world? Don’t they “own” their banking data, and therefore have some right to decide how it would be disseminated?
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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=41245
graphic-"The hacker battle cry of “free” information reflects either... more
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The offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and corporations – detailing massive potential tax evasion – will be handed over to the WikiLeaks organisation in London tomorrow by the most important and boldest whistleblower in Swiss banking history, Rudolf Elmer, two days before he goes on trial in his native Switzerland.
British and American individuals and companies are among the offshore clients whose details will be contained on CDs presented to WikiLeaks at the Frontline Club in London. Those involved include, Elmer tells the Observer, "approximately 40 politicians".
Elmer, who after his press conference will return to Switzerland from exile in Mauritius to face trial, is a former chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank, which accuses him of stealing the information.
He is also – at a time when the activities of banks are a matter of public concern – one of a small band of employees and executives seeking to blow the whistle on what they see as unprofessional, immoral and even potentially criminal activity by powerful international financial institutions.
Along with the City of London and Wall Street, Switzerland is a fortress of banking and financial services, but famously secretive and expert in the concealment of wealth from all over the world for tax evasion and other extra-legal purposes.
Elmer says he is releasing the information "in order to educate society". The list includes "high net worth individuals", multinational conglomerates and financial institutions – hedge funds". They are said to be "using secrecy as a screen to hide behind in order to avoid paying tax". They come from the US, Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia – "from all over".
Clients include "business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates – from both sides of the Atlantic". Elmer says: "Well-known pillars of society will hold investment portfolios and may include houses, trading companies, artwork, yachts, jewellery, horses, and so on."
"What I am objecting to is not one particular bank, but a system of structures," he told the Observer. "I have worked for major banks other than Julius Baer, and the one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes, and other things such as money-laundering – although these cases involve tax evasion."
Elmer was held in custody for 30 days in 2005, and is charged with breaking Swiss bank secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at Julius Baer.
Elmer says: "I agree with privacy in banking for the person in the street, and legitimate activity, but in these instances privacy is being abused so that big people can get big banking organisations to service them. The normal, hard-working taxpayer is being abused also.
"Once you become part of senior management," he says, "and gain international experience, as I did, then you are part of the inner circle – and things become much clearer. You are part of the plot. You know what the real products and service are, and why they are so expensive. It should be no surprise that the main product is secrecy … Crimes are committed and lies spread in order to protect this secrecy."
The names on the CDs will not be made public, just as a much shorter list of 15 clients that Elmer handed to WikiLeaks in 2008 has remained hitherto undisclosed by the organisation headed by Julian Assange, currently on bail over alleged sex offences in Sweden, and under investigation in the US for the dissemination of thousands of state department documents.
Elmer has been hounded by the Swiss authorities and media since electing to become a whistleblower, and his health and career have suffered.
"My understanding is that my client's attempts to get the banks to act over various complaints he made came to nothing internally," says Elmer's lawyer, Jack Blum, one of America's leading experts in tracking offshore money. "Neither would the Swiss courts act on his complaints. That's why he went to WikiLeaks."
That first crop of documents was scrutinised by the Guardian newspaper in 2009, which found "details of numerous trusts in which wealthy people have placed capital. This allows them lawfully to avoid paying tax on profits, because legally it belongs to the trust … The trust itself pays no tax, as a Cayman resident", although "the trustees can distribute money to the trust's beneficiaries".
Now, Blum says, "Elmer is being tried for violating Swiss banking secrecy law even though the data is from the Cayman Islands. This is bold extraterritorial nonsense. Swiss secrecy law should apply to Swiss banks in Switzerland, not a Swiss subsidiary in the Cayman Islands."
Julius Baer has denied all wrongdoing, and rejects Elmer's allegations. It has said that Elmer "altered" documents in order to "create a distorted fact pattern".
The bank issued a statement on Friday saying: "The aim of [Elmer's] activities was, and is, to discredit Julius Baer as well as clients in the eyes of the public. With this goal in mind, Mr Elmer spread baseless accusations and passed on unlawfully acquired, respectively retained, documents to the media, and later also to WikiLeaks. To back up his campaign, he also used falsified documents."
The bank also accuses Elmer of threatening colleagues.The offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and... more
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Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG's loss in 2009 will trigger the bank’s bonus claw back mechanism for the first time, depriving senior bankers of 300 million Swiss francs ($282 million) of deferred pay they were due to receive this year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXPA95YPD4.0&pos=5Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG's loss in 2009 will trigger the bank’s bonus... more
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US clients of UBS with more than 250,000 Swiss francs (165,641 euros, 248,040 dollars) in assets could have their details turned over to US tax authorities if there is proof of fraud, Swiss authorities said on Tuesday.
For those who have simply not disclosed their accounts, their records would only be provided to US tax authorities if the account held more than one million francs at any time between 2001 and 2008, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said here.US clients of UBS with more than 250,000 Swiss francs (165,641 euros, 248,040 dollars)... more
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The United States has reached an outline settlement with Switzerland's most powerful bank, UBS, on their long running $20bn (£12bn) tax evasion dispute that has severely damaged relations between the two countries.
It is thought that UBS will be ordered to hand over to US investigators about 5,000 American accounts suspected of tax evasion. Originally the US demanded 52,000 accounts from UBS in a move that forced the Swiss government to intervene.
If Switzerland does hand over accounts, it will in effect end any pretence of Swiss bank secrecy and may prompt an increase in cash withdrawals as the super-rich rush to protect their identities.
The case dates back two years when US tax investigators arrested Florida real estate tycoon Igor Olenicoff for tax evasion. Olenicoff accepted an offer of a reduced sentence in return for information about who organised the tax fraud.
His evidence established that UBS personnel devised sham companies to hide wealth and even smuggled diamonds in toothpaste tubes through customs.
In February, UBS paid $780m to settle criminal charges that it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes on nearly $20bn in offshore accounts. One day later, it filed the civil suit seeking to force UBS to disclose 52,000 client names.
There is no guarantee that an outline agreement will lead to a settlement, however. On Friday US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will meet Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey.
Andreas Missbach of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss economic justice campaigner, said the increasing involvement of the Swiss foreign ministry in the dispute was a sign that the country's more confrontational ministry of finance had failed to head off the row.
Switzerland has also attracted co-ordinated international action for its role as a tax haven and has pointedly not been invited to participate in G20 meetings to restore the world's economy. UBS, is not commenting on the case.The United States has reached an outline settlement with Switzerland's most... more
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Was it a crime of passion or greed? A Swiss court probes the murder that shocked Europe—a prominent French banker shot by his lover while wearing a latex body suit
His death, like their relationship, was alternately tragic and perverse, titillating and humiliating. Police found the banker’s corpse tied up, in a pool of blood, dressed in S & M-friendly pink latex, from his feet to the balaclava that covered his head. He had been shot four times, twice in the head, and once at point-blank range.Was it a crime of passion or greed? A Swiss court probes the murder that shocked... more
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ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi is assessing its $7.5 billion investment in Citigroup as the bank's problems deepen and consequences of a possible nationalization become clearer, according to sources close to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).
ADIA invested $7.5 billon last year in Citi through convertible bonds that pay 11 percent in interest, but it must start converting the bonds into 235.6 million shares in Citigroup from March next year.
"Nothing has changed from ADIA's perspective at this point. ADIA's convertible bonds are due for conversion in a phased manner between March 2010 and September 2011, and that stands," an Abu Dhabi government official told Reuters.
"But it is carefully assessing its options due to the latest events -- although no decision is taken yet," he said, declining to be named.
A spokesman for ADIA, thought to be the world's largest sovereign fund, declined to comment.ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi is assessing its $7.5 billion investment in Citigroup... more
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gooma2
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added this
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2 years ago
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UBS was sued on Tuesday in a Swiss federal court by wealthy American clients seeking to prevent the disclosure of their identities as part of a tax-evasion investigation by the United States Justice Department.UBS was sued on Tuesday in a Swiss federal court by wealthy American clients seeking... more
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It's not very patriotic to not pay your income taxes.
Some Americans even hide their money in foreign banks to their shame.
Patriotic, tax paying Americans have been let down by this shameful act of income tax evasion.
It's time all Americans pay their fair share.It's not very patriotic to not pay your income taxes.
Some Americans even hide... more
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