Credit Suisse offices raided by tax officials

Credit Suisse Officials are targeting bank staff who may have helped customers dodge taxes

Related Stories

German prosecutors have raided 13 branches of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse in connection with an inquiry into tax fraud.

The prosecutor's office in Dusseldorf said on Wednesday that about 150 investigators took part in searches.

The search is focusing on allegations that bank staff assisted clients to evade taxes.

Tax officials bought a CD in February that reportedly contained information on about 1,100 wealthy Germans.

There were reports at the time that the authorities paid about 2.5m euros for the disc to an unnamed individual.

The data contained information that led prosecutors to believe that some 1.2bn euros (£1bn) of undeclared income was stashed in the Swiss accounts by the 1,100 people.

Investigations were launched into the individuals, but now officials have turned their attention to bank staff for allegedly aiding and abetting customers to avoid taxes.

In April, Credit Suisse's chief executive Renato Fassbind said it appeared increasingly likely that some of the bank's clients were listed on a disc containing stolen data.

The company was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday's raids.

Crackdown

Governments in Europe and the US have been cracking down on tax evasion.

It is not the first time that Germany is thought to have paid for data on bank customers.

In France and the UK too, authorities have bought information on wealthy bank customers who may have hidden money in secret accounts.

More on This Story

Related Stories

More Business stories

RSS

Features & Analysis

Elsewhere on BBC News

Programmes

  • Young people playing footballFast Track Watch

    Rajan Datar visits the Chota Valley where many of Ecuador’s best footballers are born

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.