Thread: Ex-Swiss banker give Wikileaks 2,000 lawmakers from US, UK

Monday, January 17, 2011 2:25 PM

Ex-Swiss banker to give Wikileaks 2,000 "celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from US, UK who secreted away money for tax-evasion purposes"

Yahoo!Finance reports Ex-Swiss banker to hand account files to WikiLeaks. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110117/ap_ ... _wikileaks

A former Swiss banker was on Monday due to hand over files to WikiLeaks which he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.

Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday that the documents include details of about 2,000 accounts held in offshore financial centers. He says the account holders include "high net worth" celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from the U.S., Britain and Asia.

Elmer's press conference comes two days before he is due to appear before a Zurich regional court to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws.

He told the Observer newspaper he planned to disclose the new set of files to expose activities in offshore financial centers. "The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.

Fox News has a few additional quotes in Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/17 ... z1BKF8Z8kB

Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.

He has previously offered files to WikiLeaks on financial activities in the Cayman Islands and faces a court hearing in Zurich on Wednesday to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws.

"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.

Britain's tax authority declined to comment when asked about Assange's plan to supply details of alleged wrongdoing.

Under the terms of his release on bail, Assange must live at the mansion home of Vaughan Smith, the owner of the Frontline Club. He has compared the regime to "high-tech house arrest," but has recently promised that the flow of leaked documents published by his organization would increase.

If true, and depending who is on the list, this could get interesting in a hurry. So far however, we have seen very little from Wikileaks since the house arrest of Assange.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... -2000.html

Let the Money Laundering Trials Begin

Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on rich

Ex-banker says he's giving Wikileaks files on alleged tax evasion by world's rich and famous

Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press, On Monday January 17, 2011, 2:10 pm EST
LONDON (AP) -- A former Swiss banker on Monday supplied documents to WikiLeaks that he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.

Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.

He has previously offered files to WikiLeaks on financial activities in the Cayman Islands and faces a court hearing in Zurich on Wednesday to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws.

"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London's Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.

Assange praised the ex-banker's attempts to expose alleged shady practices in the financial industry. He was making a rare public appearance since he was released on bail on Dec. 16 following his arrest on a Swedish extradition warrant.

Elmer claims his previous disclosures showed evidence of major tax avoidance in the Caribbean.

However, Assange said that with WikiLeaks focussed on other issues -- such as the publication of its cache of about 250,000 diplomatic cables, it could be several weeks before Elmer's latest files are reviewed and posted on the organization's website.

The organization has so far posted about 2,444 cables to the Internet since it began publishing the documents in November.

Assange said that, as with other WikiLeaks releases, media organizations -- he named the Financial Times and Bloomberg as possible candidates -- could be given the information ahead of time.

He said that the files, or parts of the files, may also be provided to British government fraud investigators to examine for any evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

"We will treat this information like all other information we get," Assange said. "There will be a full revelation."

The Julius Baer bank said it was aware of Elmer's decision to pass a new set of files to WikiLeaks.

"He didn't attack us at this press conference, he explicitly targeted not us but 'the system,'" the bank's spokesman Jan Vonder Muehll said.

Britain's tax authority declined to comment when asked about Assange's plan to supply details of alleged wrongdoing.

Under the terms of his release on bail, Assange must live at the mansion home of Vaughan Smith, the owner of the Frontline Club. He has compared the regime to "high-tech house arrest," but has recently promised that the flow of leaked documents published by his organization would increase.

Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Exbanker- ... l?x=0&.v=8

Ex-Swiss banker to hand account files to WikiLeaks

– Mon Jan 17, 8:04 am ET

LONDON – A former Swiss banker was on Monday due to hand over files to WikiLeaks which he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.

Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday that the documents include details of about 2,000 accounts held in offshore financial centers. He says the account holders include "high net worth" celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from the U.S., Britain and Asia.

Elmer, who has previously leaked banking documents to the secret-spilling site, was scheduled to hold a news conference later Monday at London's Frontline Club with a WikiLeaks representative. Vaughan Smith, the owner of the Frontline Club, said he couldn't say who the representative would be.

Smith's 10-bedroom mansion in eastern England has been serving as a makeshift headquarters for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange since he was released on bail on Dec. 16. Assange has compared his bail conditions — which largely confine him to Smith's home — to "high-tech house arrest," but has recently promised that the flow of leaked documents would increase.

Elmer's press conference comes two days before he is due to appear before a Zurich regional court to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland's strict banking secrecy laws.

He told the Observer newspaper he planned to disclose the new set of files to expose activities in offshore financial centers. "The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110117/ap_ ... _wikileaks

Julian Assange vows to reveal tax details of 2,000 wealthy people

Swiss banker gives WikiLeaks founder data 'to educate society' about amount of potential tax revenues lost to offshore schemes

Esther Addley guardian.co.uk,
Monday 17 January 2011 18.24 GMT



Julian Assange (l) receives CDs containing data on offshore bank account holders from Rudolf Elmer. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, today pledged to make public the confidential tax details of 2,000 wealthy and prominent individuals, after being passed the data by a Swiss banker who claims the information potentially reveals instances of money-laundering and large-scale illegal tax evasion.

In a carefully choreographed handover in central London, Rudolf Elmer, formerly a senior executive at the Swiss bank Julius Baer, based in the Cayman islands, said he was handing the data to WikiLeaks as part of an attempt "to educate society" about the amount of potential tax revenues lost thanks to offshore schemes and money-laundering.

"As banker, I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," he said. "I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. I wanted to let society know how this system works because it's damaging society," he said.

Elmer will appear in a Swiss court on Wednesday charged with breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at his former employer.

He denies the charges.

He refused to comment on the period of time covered by the data, contained on two compact discs, or the precise source of the information; nor would he give the names of any corporations or individuals whose details he was handing over, saying that the information needed to be "investigated" before it was released into the public domain.

Assange, making his first public appearance since being bailed in December on sex assault allegations, for which Sweden is seeking his extradition, said he would pass the information to the Serious Fraud Office(SFO), examine it to ensure sources were protected, and then release it on the WikiLeaks site, potentially within "a couple of weeks".

"Once we look at the data, yes, there will be full disclosure," he said.

He would not be drawn on questions relating to the extradition case, which will be heard at Belmarsh magistrates court on 7 February, or on other leaks the site has promised are forthcoming, including information involving a "big US bank", which many believe to be Bank of America.

The site was not yet fully functional, he said. "We are not open yet for public business. The volume of material that we would receive is too high for our internal mechanisms, but we are receiving in other ways, like this, in this manner," he said. The release of leaked US diplomatic cables, which the site originally released through the Guardian and four other international media organisations, would continue, however. Elmer said he was passing the information to WikiLeaks because he had previously approached universities with the information but it had not been followed up. He said his attempts to interest the Swiss media had resulted only in his being dismissed as "a paranoid person, a mentally ill person".

"I was close to giving up, but then a friend of mine told me: 'There's WikiLeaks.' I looked at it and thought: 'That's the only hope I have to [let] society know what's going on.'"

In 2008, he released to the site a much smaller collection of documents, also detailing the tax details of some of the bank's clients. Though the site has never published that information, Julius Baer succeeded briefly in shutting down Wikileaks.org before the site, supported by a number of US media and civil liberties organisations, succeeded in overturning the injunction. He also passed the information to the US tax authorities.

The data was later seen by the Guardian, which found "details of numerous trusts in which wealthy people have placed capital. This allows them lawfully to avoid paying tax on profits, because legally it belongs to the trust"; the data also "[appeared] to include several cases where wealthy individuals sought to use trust money as though it were their own".

In a statement to the Observer on Friday, Julius Baer said: "The aim of [Elmer's] activities was, and is, to discredit Julius Baer as well as clients in the eyes of the public. With this goal in mind, Mr Elmer spread baseless accusations and passed on unlawfully acquired, respectively retained documents to the media, and later also to WikiLeaks. To back up his campaign, he also used falsified documents."

A spokeswoman for the SFO said it would "consider allegations made to it to determine if the matter is within its jurisdiction and criteria for investigation or possibly for another authority to consider".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/ja ... eaks-swiss

I WANT TO SEE area 51 NEXT PLEASE....

The legendary secrecy of the Swiss banking system is about to blow up

January 18, 2011

Coming next for Wikileaks: Swiss bank revelations

Rick Moran
10 Comments

The legendary secrecy of the Swiss banking system is about to blow up as a former high ranking bank executive has given Julian Assange proprietary information that names dozens of famous people who have broken tax laws by hiding their wealth.

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/busin ... ss&emc=rss

Rudolf M. Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank Julius Baer for eight years until he was dismissed in 2002, refused to identify any of the individuals or companies, but he told reporters at a news conference that about 40 politicians and "pillars of society" were among them.

He told The Observer newspaper over the weekend that those named in the documents come from "the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia - from all over," and include "business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates - from both sides of the Atlantic."

Mr. Elmer handed two computer disks to Mr. Assange at the news conference, the first significant public event the WikiLeaks founder has held since he was arrested in London in early December after Swedish prosecutors sought to have him extradited on charges of sexual crimes there. He has denied the charges but was briefly jailed last year before bail was granted.

Revealing these names will not change the world. It is gossipy baloney pure and simple. It's Wikileaks aping People Magazine. No doubt, many of those named will be in trouble for not paying taxes but is that really worth violating the privacy of individuals?

The fact that they are rich and famous shouldn't have anything to do with it. The idea that Assange is willing to do this means that no one's private information is safe. The Wikileaks justification can and will be used to make anything and everything about anybody public. The reason is simple; it will be done because it can be done.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... _swis.html