WIKILEAKS: Ex-Swiss banker to give WikiLeaks financial secrets

Ex-Swiss banker to give WikiLeaks financial secrets

CAROLINE BYRNE

A former Swiss banker intends to supply WikiLeaks on Monday with details of offshore bank accounts and alleged financial abuses by thousands of multinational companies, hedge fund managers and wealthy individuals, including North American moguls and the British elite who guard their privacy and money with equal ferocity.

The latest cache of documents is sure to induce sleepless nights for some 2,000 high net-worth banking clients and companies named in electronic data gathered by Rudolf Elmer, who earlier blew the whistle on the Julius Baer Bank when he was chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands, handing client documents to website.
Mr. Elmer will pass the latest information to a WikiLeaks representative at London’s Frontline Club and discuss offshore financial crime and banking secrets with the media. He then leaves for Zurich where he must appear Wednesday on charges of breaching Swiss bank secrecy laws. He faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Exactly who and which companies Mr. Elmer plans to “out” are closely guarded secrets. Frontline Club owner Vaughan Smith and Millicent Teasdale, one of the event’s co-ordinators, refused to say what information would be released, or comment on speculation that Canadians could be among those named.
Mr. Elmer told Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag that he had two compact discs with data on 2,000 clients and their offshore bank accounts, among them businessmen, politicians and artists. According to the newspaper, Mr. Elmer alleges that his documents show “they hide behind banking secrecy, probably to avoid tax.”
Millionaires, multinational conglomerates and hedge fund managers from Europe and the United States are also mentioned in the data, which covers a 19-year period from 1990 to 2009 and comes from multiple banking sources, Mr. Elmer said.
Frontline would say little more than that Mr. Elmer would be accompanied by his lawyer, Washington money-laundering expert Jack Blum, and would reveal more details of alleged abuses in the world of offshore financial centres.” Mr. Elmer and Mr. Blum could not be reached Sunday night.
“Really, we’re just the venue,” Vaughan Smith, owner of the Frontline Club, said, distancing himself from the controversy and publicity that has swarmed around him since he agreed to shelter WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the world’s best-known whistleblower. Mr. Smith owns the 10-bedroom farm in Norfolk, in the east of England, where Mr. Assange remains under “mansion arrest” while fighting extradition to Sweden on allegations involving sexual assault.
The club shut its lounge and rooms to members in preparation of Monday’s event. Mr. Assange and his WikiLeaks team have been using the Frontline journalist club as a working base so he can continue to be directly involved in the release of 275,000 U.S. diplomatic cables that have made uncomfortable reading for diplomats. Mr. Assange is not expected to be at the London club Monday as his bail conditions limit his movements, although he could appear by video link.
For its part, Julius Baer Bank has denied any wrongdoing and any allegations that it may have aided clients who wanted to avoid taxes by using offshore accounts. The bank has also accused Mr. Elmer of trying to discredit the bank because he was fired.
 
Special to the Globe and Mail