Credit Suisse settles criminal case for helping Americans avoid taxes

Credit Suisse Services AG pleaded guilty Monday and will pay about $511 million to settle a criminal case for having conspired with wealthy American taxpayers to hide more than $4 billion in at least 475 offshore accounts, the Department of Justice said.

In addition to that plea, the UBS subsidiary also entered into a non-prosecution agreement with prosecutors in connection with U.S. accounts that were booked at Credit Suisse AG Singapore.

“Between 2014 and June 2023, Credit Suisse AG Singapore held undeclared accounts for U.S. persons, which Credit Suisse AG Singapore knew or should have known were U.S., with total assets valued at over $2 billion,” the DOJ said.

The DOJ said that the criminal conspiracy to which Credit Suisse admitted guilt allowed “ultra-high-net-worth and high-net-worth individual clients” of the Swiss financial services corporation to evade their U.S. tax obligations from 2010 through 2021.

“In doing so, Credit Suisse AG committed new crimes and breached its May 2014 plea agreement with the United States,” the department said.

Credit Suisse in 2014 pleaded guilty to helping U.S. taxpayers hide offshore accounts from the IRS, and paid $2.6 billion to settle the case. It was at the time the largest ever payment in a criminal tax case.

The firm on Monday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to aid and assist in the preparation of false income tax returns in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. The tax loss from the accounts to the United States was more than $71 million, and Credit Suisse’s associated revenues from the accounts exceeded $108.6 million, according to a court filing.

The DOJ said that Credit Suisse and UBS are “required to cooperate fully with ongoing investigations and affirmatively disclose any information it may later uncover regarding U.S.-related accounts.”

“The agreements provide no protections for any individuals,” the DOJ said.

The plea comes more than two years after the Senate Finance Committee said an investigation by the panel found that Credit Suisse had been “complicit in ongoing tax evasion by ultra-wealthy Americans … including a previously unknown, ongoing and potentially criminal conspiracy involving the failure to disclose nearly $100 million in secret offshore accounts belonging to a single family of American taxpayers.”

Jeffrey Neiman, a Florida attorney who represented whistleblowers in the case, in a statement, said his clients “uncovered and exposed this ongoing misconduct” of the company’s violation of the original plea deal.

Neiman said his clients, all former Credit Suisse bankers, for more than a decade provided the DOJ, IRS and Senate with information about the bank’s breach of its 2014 plea agreement.

“At great personal risk and potential prosecution by Swiss authorities, they provided the Government
with detailed evidence: names, Social Security numbers, and passports of U.S.-linked account
holders whose assets had been hidden for decades,” Neiman said.

“They turned over internal documents, including account statements and emails, and even shared intelligence on the movement and travel of
bankers, which allowed federal agents to act swiftly and effectively.”

“For nearly a decade, the whistleblowers have waited for this moment,” he said.

“Today, they feel vindicated — for telling the truth, for risking everything, and for standing up to one of the world’s most powerful financial institutions.”

A charging document filed Monday against Credit Suisse says it falsified bank records to conceal U.S. ownerships and control of accounts, documented certain American accounts owners “as non-U.S. persons,” processed fictitious paperwork, maintain more than 100 accounts held by a Swiss lawyer or enable “for the benefit of undeclared clients,” and services “more than $1 billion worth of U.S. accounts without full documentation of tax compliance long after the accounts should have been closed.”

Among the overt acts detailed in that charging document were Credit Suisse allowing a U.S. citizen and former University of Rochester business professor named Dan Horsky to retain control of assets after changing beneficial ownership of those assets to a relative who was not a a U.S. citizens, and other actions that allowed Horsky to avoid paying taxes on the assets.

Horsky, who federal prosecutors said his an overseas account containing $200 million, in 2016 pleaded guilty to tax-related crimes, was sentenced to seven months in prison in 2017, and paid a $100 million civil penalty.

Credit Suisse’s parent company, the Swiss bank UBS, in a statement on Monday, said it was “not involved in the underlying conduct and has zero tolerance for tax evasion.” UBS acquired Credit Suisse in 2023.

“With this resolution, UBS is pleased to have resolved another of Credit Suisse’s legacy issues, in line with UBS’s intention to resolve legacy matters at pace in a fair and balanced way and in the best interest of all its stakeholders,” the bank said.

“In the second quarter of 2025, UBS Group AG expects to recognize a credit from the partial release of the contingent liability established with the acquisition of Credit Suisse as part of the purchase price allocation process,” the statement said. “UBS AG expects to record a charge in the second quarter in relation to this resolution.”

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, in a statement on Monday, said, “This settlement fully vindicates the findings of my investigation, which exposed how Credit Suisse kept hiding more than $700 million offshore for rich Americans in violation of their deal to avoid prosecution.”

“The ultra-wealthy and shady Swiss bankers shouldn’t get a free pass to cook up offshore tax evasion schemes when regular Americans are paying their fair share,” Wyden said.