London’s ‘paradise’ for money cheats

THE City of London has become a “paradise for money launderers” because Britain’s legal system allows people depositing money to hide their identities behind a trust system, the president of the Swiss Bankers’ Association said yesterday.

“The consequence of this rule is that the authorities’ investigations reach no conclusions, because the banks really don’t know who their trust customers are,” Pierre Mirabaud told newspaper Berner Zeitung.

British and EU officials frequently attack Swiss banking secrecy as providing a haven for money launderers and tax dodgers.

But the Swiss respond that they have tightened their laws and are the only country that has been able to find such assets and repatriate them.

The British trust system effectively removes any need for Britain to have banking secrecy laws, Mirabaud said.

“That’s why the so-called information exchange is a farce,” he said.

But Mirabaud said banks in Switzerland have to know more about their customers than in any other country.

Among the measures undertaken by Switzerland in recent years are requirements that banks report suspicious account holders and know the real owner of assets deposited with them.