For the first time since Operation Car Wash began, a Swiss banker has been convicted for his role in a corruption scheme involving Brazil and the country in the Alps.
The Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office convicted a former PKB Privatbank executive for money laundering. According to authorities, Ferdinando Coda Nunziante authorized the laundering of $17.5 million. But his fine is only CHF 270,000 and even then with a suspension effect for two years.
Even so, the verdict represents a rare conviction by a Swiss banker and was announced this Thursday by journalist Federico Franchini from Gotham publication. The May 23 conviction was confirmed by the UOL report. Called, the bank has not yet commented.
Swiss prosecutors, including Petrobras and Odebrecht, started the third phase of the process after investigating who had taken and paid bribes over the years. The aim was to assess how local banks and their employees have allowed millions of dollars to pass through Switzerland’s financial system, albeit illegally.
The bank’s regulator, FINMA, has even fined some of the country’s financial institutions. Among them is the PKB. But parallel to this, the deputy also opened his own investigation.
Ferdinando Coda Nunziante worked at the bank in 1995 and took a management position ten years later. According to Swiss media, he was also responsible for the bank’s development projects in the Latin American market. He was the first Swiss banker to be convicted in the Lava Jato case.
What the MP found was the executive’s responsibility in getting money from Brazilian corruption. According to the investigation, the relationship began in 2006 when the PKB approached Odebrecht. Established was a system in which the bank was used to pass the money to be given as a bribe. The plan was also created in conjunction with the construction company’s Structured Operations Department, also known as the “Bribery Unit”.
What the lawsuit alleges is that Ferdinando Coda Nunziante “authorized the circulation of goods of criminal origin in the PKB and constituted corrupt payments aimed, among other things, to reimburse Brazilian authorities for obtaining public contracts”.
An email will be a clear indication of how knowledgeable the banker is about the nature of transactions, according to the investigation. In March 2010, one of the banker’s subordinates sent him a message celebrating the arrival of Brazilian clients who would become “Odebrecht’s counterparts”: former Petrobras executives Paulo Roberto Costa and Pedro Barusco, who confessed to their crimes. Barusco was even taken by the banker in 2014.
The banker-supervised accounts would have spent US$17.5 million in an action considered money laundering by the MP. The Swiss, currently living in Italy, “systematically failed to comply with bank due diligence obligations,” according to officials.
source: Noticias
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