According to the results of the American investigation, Swiss bank Credit Suisse long concealed evidence of numerous accounts belonging to Nazis in the past. Under investigation by the Senate Budget Committee USA Tens of thousands of documents were released that provided extensive evidence of Nazi-linked accounts.
The findings come from Neil Barofsky, an independent ombudsman who was commissioned by Credit Suisse in 2021 to investigate clues about possible, as yet undisclosed, Nazi clients at the bank. However, in December 2022, Barofsky was fired from Credit Suisse. He maintains that it was because he opposed the bank's demands that he limit his research.
The American commission intervenes
The US Senate Budget Committee learned about it. Thus, a powerful body has come into play because the commission has jurisdiction over Office Special Envoy for Holocaust Affairs, a branch of the US Department of State. With this in mind, committee chairman Sheldon Whitehouse and Senator Chuck Grassley launched an investigation that forced the release of Barofsky's findings. The US commission's intervention subsequently enabled further examination of at least 64,000 potentially relevant data records at Credit Suisse.
These details were not released during earlier investigations in the 1990s. Barofsky was also reinstated work by Credit Suisse, which has been part of the large Swiss bank UBS since June 2023, to continue its investigations.
Accounts of middlemen, war profiteers and escape aids
For the first time, the data analyzed provided clues about numerous accounts of intermediaries who supported the Nazis in, among other things, looting Jewish property, smuggling and hiding war booty. Links were also uncovered between Credit Suisse and people who helped Nazis escape after the war. There were also accounts linked to Jewish exploitation and deposits money belonging to Jewish citizens who were forced to deposit their assets in a specific bank. Some of the accounts were supposed to be still active in the 2000s. According to the UBS bank, a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the data will be carried out. Barofsky will receive “every support necessary to facilitate his work and to shed more light on this dark chapter of history through the audit,” according to the bank's statement.
Due to the enormous amount of data to analyze, the U.S. commission expects to complete the Barofsky report in 2026.