Geneva prosecutors are investigating whether a Credit Suisse Group AG unit failed to stop money laundering in a case tied to a defunct asset manager, according to people familiar with the probe.
Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation late last week into Credit Suisse, after two additional former employees were named as suspects in the case over the summer, said the people, who didn’t want to be identified discussing an open case. Four people at Credit Suisse and four at the asset manager, TG Investments, including its two founding partners are suspects, the person said.
“Credit Suisse firmly rejects any criminal liability and will vigorously defend itself against the allegations with all available means,” the bank said in an emailed statement. Credit Suisse acted as a custodian bank for TG Investments, which had its own mandate to manage the assets.
In 2016, prosecutors charged the two TG partners, who had left Credit Suisse in 2008 to set up a firm to manage money for Turkish customers, with fraud and criminal mismanagement for forging signatures and faking orders to try to cover losses of at least 150 million Swiss francs ($149 million). Earlier this year, a former Credit Suisse wealth manager was convicted of fraud and mismanagement in a scandal involving wealthy Russian clients that bears similarities to the Turkish case and which continues to rumble on in the Swiss courts.
It’s not clear why prosecutors decided to expand the probe, the person said. However under Swiss law, a bank may have violated Switzerland’s money-laundering law if a judge determines that it didn’t do enough to stop the transfers and that guilt cannot be attributed to a single individual.
A spokesman for the prosecutor’s Office wasn’t immediately available to comment.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.