[HN Gopher] Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, co...
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Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters, corrupt
politicians
Author : DrNuke
Score : 185 points
Date : 2022-02-20 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| jokoon wrote:
| Bank secrecy and shadow banking should not exist.
|
| The worst thing about capitalism and globalism is tax dodging and
| bank secrecy.
| jdrc wrote:
| Everybody likes defending the bank's right to bank with
| murderers, but god forbid they bank with a cam sex worker.
|
| https://bitcoinist.com/allie-rae-onlyfans-x-crypto-crossover...
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Murderers don't disproportionately trigger chargebacks. We've
| had this discussion a lot in the past few years [0].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28337834
| [deleted]
| jdrc wrote:
| is there any actual data about that or is it urban myth?
|
| Onlyfans keeps identity documents for its members so
| trafficking-wise they are actually safer than facebook. there
| are all other businesses affected by the same discrimination,
| e.g. sex toy shops, dating websites, nudist websites,
| basically anything that shows skin. I find it hard to believe
| that chargebacks are so much of an issue, especially since
| there are third parties willing to take the risk for a high
| fee (CCbill).
| mouzogu wrote:
| covid ends. russia war begins. putin to discuss ceasfire. credit
| suisse expose.
|
| is there any connection between these events, or am i just taking
| the simulation hypothesis too seriously.
| math-dev wrote:
| Inflation is too high currently (no surprise), so they need
| something to distract the masses with
| sschueller wrote:
| So they can spend a warping 770 Billion a year on defense.
| How do you even sell that with so many people struggling in
| the US?
| nceqs3 wrote:
| We spend triple that on the social programs.
| trasz wrote:
| If you're paying so much, why does it work so poorly,
| compared to Europe?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Because or political structures are designed in a way
| that discourages competence. We spend an insane amount on
| social services but nobody cares if they have they are
| spent wisely or have an impact.
| sdoering wrote:
| Being a cynic I would say you don't sell it (except maybe
| with the Russian situation) but just do it. Who should stop
| the US government from going forward with this?
|
| I know, I am a cynic. But I once was (young and naive) a
| member of the German social democrat party. I visited the
| state convention for their youth members. It was a perfect
| politics simulacrum. With decisions being made, backroom
| deals (because we don't like the other people - even if
| their proposal was factually good). And so on.
|
| The perfect training ground for young party "soldiers"
| streamlined to not show any sigh of a consciousness towards
| real problems. Just play the power game. Show how
| scrupulous you are without being obvious.
|
| I left this rotten club behind (politics) and never looked
| back. Nowadays 20 years later the people back thrn being
| good at this game and aiming for the top posts in this
| youth org of the SPD sit at the center of power in Berlin
| in relevant positions.
| sschueller wrote:
| Yes it's discusting how modern politics operate not in
| the interest of the population but in their own and their
| enablers (donors and powerful).
|
| The most obsurd is when soldiers are sent to fire weapons
| where each bullet costs more than they make in a year at
| another group of people that have even less for political
| reasons.
| sinyug wrote:
| > is there any connection between these events, or am i just
| taking the simulation hypothesis too seriously.
|
| While I don't know about the rest, Russia has been a neocon
| project for a long time. If Trump hadn't given them the shock
| of their lives by winning and then spent the next four years
| sucking all the oxygen out of Washington, Hillary would have
| granted their wish in 2017-18.
|
| Putin is no saint. But I think he is vastly superior to his
| drunkard predecessor who let the country be looted by
| oligarchs.
|
| It is also possible that this is a _Wag the Dog_ situation.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Putin is smart as hell, most probably sociopath on top. You
| don't get to be long term successful KGB apparatchik for
| nothing. The problem is, nobody who wants all that juicy
| freedom, democracy and other perks of good western life wants
| strong Russia, these things are exact opposites. Its by far
| the biggest actual threat to European democracy.
|
| I come from country who was invaded by them in 1968 when we
| showed we may head towards democracy, and the Russian
| mentality remained the same since then.
|
| Its sad germans as a nation are still heavily traumatized by
| what their ancestors did during WWII, and probably hell will
| freeze sooner than german army fighting, well anything. This
| leaves Europe severely weakened in eyes of nearby machos like
| Putin or Erdogan.
|
| He could have built a fine prosperous empire that people are
| actually happy to live in. Instead, everything is worse and
| he just siphons tens of billions to same banks as discussed
| here via his buddies (UBS cough cough). It _may_ be the Wag
| the Dog situation, but all above is still valid.
| seanhunter wrote:
| This whistleblower is taking substantial personal risk. The Swiss
| banking secrecy laws provide for 5 year prison terms for people
| leaking client-sensitive information and when I worked on
| sensitive things in Switzerland I had to sign a document setting
| out the penalties and saying that I understood that I was
| personally liable and could (and probably would) receive jail
| time for disclosing anything.
| leroman wrote:
| Considering the profile of the people exposed, shouldn't they
| be more concerned for their lives than prison?
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Yes. It the reversal of this scene here from Morgan Freeman
| in Batman: https://youtu.be/1z6o1GIEsQE?t=50
| sschueller wrote:
| I hope we soon can get proper whistleblower law because right
| now companies get away with way too much crap.
|
| At least the state can use anything leaked no matter how it was
| obtained against the banks and companies.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| My feeling is Switzerland shouldn't be allowed to do that
| much banking.
| kragen wrote:
| The whistleblower could just as easily be an employee of the
| Russian FSB or the US NSA as an employee of Credit Suisse, in
| which case they wouldn't be at much personal risk.
| leroman wrote:
| I understand the need for privacy and exclusive access, but would
| love some kind of anonymized stats per country, year etc..
| WHA8m wrote:
| Once again the leaker went to Suddeutsche Zeitung [1] and left
| his/her/their documents there. Panama papers [2] and Paradise
| papers [3] started there as well. I'm really wondering why that
| is.
|
| [1] https://www.sueddeutsche.de [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers
| Fronzie wrote:
| Well, by now they have a reputation: Leakers of high-profile
| cases can stay anonymous if they go to this newspaper.
| jmyeet wrote:
| It's this sort of thing that gives me (even more) confidence that
| pretty much every government conspiracy or at least the more
| incredulous claims (eg aliens and UFOs) are false. Such systems
| would rely on humans and humans tend to be really bad at keeping
| secrets or they simply have a crisis of conscience and release
| things they technically shouldn't as is the case here.
|
| Look at the Manhattan project. utmost secrecy. Attempts to
| segregate the workers in towns to limit contact with potential
| spies. Yet people felt ideologically the US should not have a
| monopoly on such a weapon so leaked it to th Soviets anyway.
|
| Go back to antiquity and you have Julius Caesar who held ultimate
| power in Rome and had loyal legions and immense wealth. And he
| was undone by a handful of principled people with knives.
|
| I actually think this is why things are never as bad as they seem
| and conversely never as good as they seem.
|
| This leak, the Panama papers, the Paradise papers and so on. I
| applaud whoever is in a position to leak this information and
| does so at great personal risk.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| I commend the bravery of the leaker/whistleblower and hope they
| can maintain their personal safety. It's time to expose the evil
| amongst the elite-- _all_ the elite--once and for all.
| social_quotient wrote:
| Should it be limited to just elite or everyone all the way
| down? Not trolling you as it might sound but how do you draw
| lines between elite and not elite.
| bostonsre wrote:
| The elite seem to be able to scale the harm they do pretty
| well. I wouldn't be against focusing more resources on
| pursuing elite bad actors, but don't think there should be a
| minimum bad bar that must be surpassed to get prosecuted.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Well elite in financial sense since we talk about banks,
| doing unlawful financial operations. Its not a bank's role to
| investigate murders.
|
| Poor can't do that much impactful financial crime, can they
| joseloyaio wrote:
| Switzerland is all about Neutrality
|
| What's the point of neutrality if you are gonna ignore it when
| it's convenient.
|
| There's a reason Switzerland held Jewish and Nazi gold alike.
| sdze wrote:
| This country should be heavily sanctioned by the international
| community. They actively pull in (tax) fraudsters and
| criminals.
| sfrank wrote:
| So, like Delaware?
| saiya-jin wrote:
| just like: bigger half of Caribbean, City of London, all of
| the UK Channel Islands, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Malta,
| Cyprus, Macao, Singapore, Delaware (yes that's US) and many,
| many more.
|
| Its a dumb approach, sold by populist politicians to less-
| than-bright voters before elections who want binary world and
| simple solutions to all their problems.
| umvi wrote:
| People on HN often dismiss the "nothing to hide" argument as
| invalid when it comes to strong privacy rights, but... the fact
| remains that those who _very much_ want to hide their illegal
| activities and ill-gotten gains are first in line to the banks
| /services with the strongest privacy guarantees (swiss banks,
| cryptocurrencies, e2e chat apps, etc).
|
| It's a hard problem and I don't think saying "oh well, having
| human traffickers and terrorists use the service to enable their
| activities is just the cost of privacy rights" is going to fly
| any more than "oh well, having tons of criminals use guns for
| murder is just the cost of the second amendment" flies. The
| latter argument _used_ to fly, but it 's increasingly unpopular
| to say that these days, and I suspect the same will happen when
| it comes to services with strong privacy guarantees.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > ... are first in line to the banks/services with the
| strongest privacy guarantees (swiss banks, cryptocurrencies,
| e2e chat apps, etc).
|
| I'm not sure why crypto got bundled in there because it's
| anything but private. The entire transaction history is public.
| That's kind of the point. Look at tainted Bitcoins [1] and the
| couple caught trying to launder the Bitfinex Bitcoins [2].
|
| Crypto is not private by design.
|
| [1]: https://cipherblade.com/blog/tainted-bitcoin-isnt-what-
| you-t...
|
| [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/13/nyregion/bitcoin-
| bitfinex...
| umvi wrote:
| > I'm not sure why crypto got bundled in there because it's
| anything but private
|
| It's pseudonymous, which is similar to private. As long as
| you don't allow your pseudonym (wallet id) tied to your real
| identity, you can do all sorts of naughty stuff and get away
| with it.
| lokalfarm wrote:
| Do you use HTTPS? SSH? A password manager?
|
| Everyone has something to hide -- it is a matter of how much
| and from who(m). In our world of Big Data/surveillance
| capitalism, I don't see how you could even argue against
| stronger privacy rights...
| missedthecue wrote:
| I have SSH on my servers for the same reason I have locks on
| my house. Not because I have stuff to hide, but because
| having stuff stolen costs me money, and SSH and locks are an
| inexpensive way of preventing stuff of mine from being stolen
| [deleted]
| ls15 wrote:
| The worst apples will always find a way to protect their
| privacy, while the innocent majority of people is having their
| privacy invaded against their best interests.
| [deleted]
| kragen wrote:
| Another day, another answer to "what is Bitcoin good for?"
|
| Earlier today we were discussing the false-positive rate of
| Google Drive's copyright-scanning approach:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30404587. What do you
| suppose the leaker's false-positive rate on "fraudsters and
| corrupt politicians" is?
|
| The article does admit this:
|
| > _It is not illegal to have a Swiss account and the leak also
| contained data of legitimate clients who had done nothing wrong._
|
| Moreover, almost all of the examples in the article seem to be
| cases of "ex-con nevertheless is able to open bank account".
| Isn't that a _good_ thing? Do we want a criminal conviction to
| implicitly include a lifetime of exclusion from the financial
| system?
|
| The sole exception seems to be "an allegedly fraudulent
| investment in London property that is at the centre of an ongoing
| criminal trial of several defendants, including a cardinal,"
| which is to say, the accountholder may turn out to be innocent.
| This suggests that the whistleblower's false-positive rate was
| upwards of 99%.
|
| So, if you've done nothing wrong but you don't want your banking
| details to be leaked for journalists in hostile countries to comb
| through looking for something they can pin on you, maybe Bitcoin
| would be a better alternative.
|
| Not a hosted wallet like Coinbase or Binance, though. They're
| probably almost as vulnerable as Credit Suisse.
|
| Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30375671
| tootie wrote:
| This times 1000 if you have done things wrong and don't want
| journalists (or law enforcement) to find out
| kragen wrote:
| Or if you've done things _right_ that you don 't want law
| enforcement to find out about, such as funding a protest.
|
| But this is all hypothetical; evidently only one of the
| 30,000 people swept up in this dragnet had done anything with
| their account that would merit such attention: the single
| example of the (oddly, unnamed) cardinal with his possibly
| fraudulent London real estate transaction.
| Youden wrote:
| > So, if you've done nothing wrong but you don't want your
| banking details to be leaked for journalists in hostile
| countries to comb through looking for something they can pin on
| you, maybe Bitcoin would be a better alternative.
|
| But with Bitcoin all transactions are public, journalists don't
| need a leak.
| kragen wrote:
| Transactions, yes, and dates and amounts, but not names. And
| many "transactions" on the blockchain are within a single
| wallet.
|
| It'll be interesting to see what happens when journalists
| start reporting on the immense data in the blockchain, but
| for whatever reason it hasn't happened yet. I don't think
| it'll happen as long as the "journalists" are the kind that
| think it's okay to publish an encryption key to a publicly
| available encrypted file of confidential data: https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cable...
| sofixa wrote:
| > Moreover, almost all of the examples in the article seem to
| be cases of "ex-con nevertheless is able to open bank account".
| Isn't that a good thing? Do we want a criminal conviction to
| implicitly include a lifetime of exclusion from the financial
| system?
|
| No, but extra due diligence is required when someone
| _convicted_ of taking bribes or similar corruption or drug
| /human trafficking record opens a bank account with huge sums
| of money.
|
| Or people like those:
|
| * former head of intelligence and vice president of Egypt
| https://cdn.occrp.org/projects/suisse-secrets-interactive/en...
|
| * https://cdn.occrp.org/projects/suisse-secrets-
| interactive/en... former wife of the current Kazakh dictator
|
| Just to name a few. Their money is quite probably of dubious
| origin and the bank should have done better due diligence.
| kragen wrote:
| There's nothing in the article to suggest that they didn't do
| the due diligence; do you have access to some information
| about that that isn't in the article?
| Traster wrote:
| I'm honestly always amazed at people in these threads who say
| "Oh, well in general this is a public good, so we should be hands
| off". Sure, the _default_ should be hands off, but if you have
| enough information to know what youre doing is wrong, you _are_
| responsible. It 's one thing to say it's a public service, but if
| you _know_ what you 're doing is wrong, you know it's wrong,and
| in a lot of cases, a lot of effort is put into _pretending_ that
| you don 't know it's wrong even though you _know_ it 's wrong.
|
| At the point where your own employees are risking their careers
| because _they_ know it 's wrong. Well... maybe only poor people
| have moral compasses.
| vmception wrote:
| Money, liquidity, and fungibility is a public good, it has been
| (and still is) a waste of public and private resources to attempt
| to alter that reality.
|
| Although this isn't a popular or public opinion by the public or
| banks or politicians, it is also the reality for banks and their
| host governments, and all lip service otherwise is either a lie
| for data collection or simply fails spectacularly at actually
| preventing any flow of funds.
|
| So, there isn't any point in saying "Credit Suisse is a rouge
| bank", because the whole idea of pretending to whitelist
| transactions and clients is flawed and useless. There isn't any
| point in saying "privacy laws are immoral" because it doesn't
| matter what anyone's background is, they can still access banking
| and pools of liquidity to move between assets and trade with
| others anyway.
|
| Even the vague idea of avoiding terrorist financing is flawed.
| Terrorism isn't expensive enough for this whitelisting project.
| People aren't flying planes into buildings because they don't
| want to fly planes into buildings. Its not that expensive. Let's
| drop the charade and reduce overhead costs for everyone.
|
| Congratulations, we've successfully stigmatized having money,
| except for the people that actually have it who ignored the
| cultural stigma and can afford better education and counsel on
| reality. Let's move on from this data mining and transaction
| whitelisting project.
| strogonoff wrote:
| I believe KYC is a very good idea fundamentally, and I wish
| more banks took it seriously _with their top customers_ as well
| (or more) as with the rest. It's not in banks' interests, of
| course.
|
| And I disagree that terrorism is cheap. Preparation for 9/11
| allegedly cost up to $500K. Bojinka plot used fair amount of
| financing as well. Maybe those couldn't be caught via financial
| controls and KYC, or maybe they could.
| vmception wrote:
| Correct, I consider that cheap when HSBC subsequently
| laundered billions of dollars over the following decade after
| the PATRIOT Act. The same PATRIOT Act that wouldnt have
| flagged wire transfers the terrorists used even if it existed
| before 9/11. It's just an opportunistic data collection
| program on everyone else.
|
| With billions slipping through from any random branch manager
| at any bank anywhere, how many 9/11s is that? Any time, for
| any reason, funding secured.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| I can't help but see KYC as a means for automated IRS
| cases. They are swamped and the basic associations from the
| new datasets are incredibly revealing.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| That's because Congress and the Senate out of pure self
| interest have chosen to restrict the IRS funding for
| decades. If they had the balls to increase funding I have
| little doubt they would have found and retrieved taxes
| rightfully due to the government.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Expenses are interesting and add up rapidly (as any business
| owner knows)... 500k over two years for 20 people is only
| $1000/person/month and that has to account for all living
| expenses plus whatever else is required (flight training,
| cover identities, bribes, pay-for-play etc.)
| strogonoff wrote:
| Yes, of course the parent did not specify what they thought
| as "cheap", I am only pointing out that it is apparently
| not as cheap as a couple of airplane tickets.
|
| In other words, their point was that all you need is a
| desire to fly an airplane into a building, but my point is
| that you need _that_ plus XXX kilodollars (spread over time
| or not). Reportedly, one of the 9 /11 guys was wired $100k
| in one go[0]--these amounts could be noticed, but dealing
| with very profitable accounts one might just be too greedy
| for that.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_
| Septe...
| [deleted]
| harry8 wrote:
| > it doesn't matter what anyone's background is, they can still
| access banking and pools of liquidity to move between assets
| and trade with others anyway.
|
| Julian Assange & Wikleaks had no access to the banking system
| because a US politician asked the banks to refuse them service
| at a time when they had not been charged with any crime.
|
| Whenever you see someone you "dislike" being dealt with in an
| extradjudicial manner just keep in mind that these are your
| rights that now don't matter.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > This article is a bit difficult to understand; there's a
| mixture of actual money laundering with the non-crime of "a
| really bad person has a bank account". There's a difficult and
| IMO increasingly urgent question here, of whether the banking
| system is a utility or something else. There's no whistleblowers
| from the electricity company, even though it literally kept the
| lights on for murderers and traffickers. Nobody gets sentenced to
| "and you are not allowed a bank account for the rest of your
| life". If a criminal hasn't had their whole wealth confiscated as
| proceeds of crime by the courts, is the convention now that
| nonetheless they should be deprived of the ability to use them?
| Maybe. I really don't know the answer in some hard cases. But it
| feels like if the banking system is going to be part of the law
| enforcement system, that needs to be established through actual
| laws passed through the parliament. As far as I can see there are
| some charges of actual complicity in the article, but it's hard
| to separate them from "this bad person was a client".
| https://twitter.com/dsquareddigest/status/149544584780670566...
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Whilst I agree with everything you say (quote?), you're not
| meant to bank with unexplained or unsavoury sources of funds.
| Eg storing money you stole from your murdered is not better
| than money laundering. Iirc some of the CS clients fell into
| this category and the bank was very keen to not ask questions.
|
| I'm pretty sure there is a bank somewhere in the Alps where Kim
| Jong Un has a little bank account under an appropriately
| obfuscated identity. Probably more than one. Whoever opened it
| from the bank's side probably knew something is up but chose
| not to ask questions. And they are providing banking access to
| North Korea's dictator.
| remarkEon wrote:
| You're right, these are separate issues. What you're
| describing is really just money laundering, which is already
| illegal and there a number of dimensions available for this
| to be discovered and prosecuted under the law. What the
| person you are replying to is concerned about - and
| rightfully so[1] - is that zealous enforcement of banking
| controls, even though it comes from the same principled place
| of "dictators shouldn't be allowed to hide their funds in
| country_that_has_laws", can and probably will result in banks
| making decisions about who has access to banking services
| based on internal political dynamics. It's a huge elephant in
| the room that I think deserves more discussion and scrutiny.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/OttawaPolice/status/1495367658132361216
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > Whilst I agree with everything you say (quote?), you're not
| meant to bank with unexplained[1] or unsavoury sources of
| funds.
|
| Guilty until proven innocent is the legal basis for civil
| forfeiture too. So by supporting both depriving people of
| access to banking and criminalizing usage of cash you can
| fully drive them out of society.
|
| [1] This is the guilty until proven innocent bit
| [deleted]
| rich_sasha wrote:
| This is a bit different. It sounds like with US civil
| forfeiture you can just seize any and all assets merely
| because someone is accused of something unrelated. This I
| agree is awful.
|
| Bank KYC is a bit different. A bank, certainly at this
| level, is supposed to know who you are and where your money
| is coming from _ahead_ of setting up the account. They have
| to satisfy themselves it's a legal source. If they become
| suspicious, they should tip off authorities who can
| investigate etc.
|
| At no point here can the bank judiciously freeze your
| assets. All this should mostly happen before the bank even
| touches your money.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| > There's no whistleblowers from the electricity company, even
| though it literally kept the lights on for murderers and
| traffickers
|
| To play devil's advocate here, if those people completed their
| sentence and they are being resocialized they have access to
| what any regular citizen is supposed to access.
|
| OTOH if they haven't been sentenced yet and the electricity
| company knows of it, I think they are walking on thin ice if
| they don't report it. I'm sure there are heavy sentences for
| keeping a blind eye on trafficking.
|
| The other point worth mentioning when money laundering happens,
| tax evasion or even misappropriation of state money the bank is
| facilitating those crimes which really stands by itself.
|
| So now I'm really wondering what the legit use case of the
| anonymous accounts is supposed to be.
| Traster wrote:
| Actually, to a certain extent, yes, the electricity company is
| going to report you if you're using too much electricity (this
| is how pot growers used to be caught), and yes, preventing
| traffickers from using legitimate banking is absolutely a
| standard practice, this is literally why money laundering is a
| thing. Also, if you are stupid enough to get caught money
| laundering (people will proposition strangers/(young stupid
| people) and say "cash this money, I'll give you 10%") you'll be
| blacklisted pretty damn quick - literally penniless teenagers
| give away their entire future to these scams.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Came here to post dsquared's comment. Compare and contrast this
| thread with the truckers one. We don't really want to force
| banks into some kind of ill-specified "account cancellation
| culture".
| adamhearn wrote:
| The accounts (and who they belong to) can be explored on this
| site: https://cdn.occrp.org/projects/suisse-secrets-
| interactive/en...
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(page generated 2022-02-20 23:01 UTC)