Credit Suisse criticized for investigation of Nazi-linked accounts

US lawmakers have accused embattled Swiss bank Credit Suisse of limiting the scope of an internal investigation into Nazi clients and Nazi-linked accounts, including some that were open until just a few years ago.

The Senate Budget Committee says an independent ombudsman initially hired by the bank to oversee the investigation was “inexplicably terminated” while carrying out his job, criticizing “incomplete” reporting hampered by restrictions.

Credit Suisse said it was “fully cooperating” with the committee’s investigation, but rejected some claims by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group, which exposed allegations in 2020 of possible accounts linked to the Nazis in the second center of Switzerland.

Despite the hurdles, reports from the ombudsman and forensic investigation team revealed at least 99 accounts of senior Nazi officials in Germany or members of Nazi-affiliated groups in Argentina, most of whom had not previously been disclosed. the commission said Tuesday.

The reports “raise new questions about the bank’s potential support for Nazis fleeing justice after World War II via so-called ‘Ratlines,'” the committee said, referring to a network of escape routes used by the Nazis after the war.

The commission said Credit Suisse “has committed to continuing its own investigation into the questions that remain unanswered.”

“When it comes to investigating Nazi affairs, just justice demands that we leave no stone unturned. Credit Suisse thus far has not met that standard,” said Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican member on the budget panel.

The commission “leaves no stone unturned when it comes to investigating Nazis and seeking justice for Holocaust survivors and their families, and we are committed to pursuing this investigation,” said Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island.

Credit Suisse launched the internal investigation after the Simon Wiesenthal Center said it had information that the bank had previously undisclosed possible Nazi-linked accounts, including during a series of Holocaust-related investigations in the 1990s. .

At the end of that decade, Swiss banks agreed to pay some $1.25 billion to Nazi victims and their families who accused the banks of stealing, hiding, or sending hundreds of millions of dollars in Jewish property to the Nazis.

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