By Katharina Bart
ZURICH (Reuters) - U.S. officials have arrested a former UBS
The arrest comes as U.S. authorities crack down on tax evasion and has revived Swiss bankers' fears that they could face detention if they travel to the United States and are suspected of helping people hide money in offshore accounts.
Coutts notified staff in Geneva on Friday that one of its private bankers had been arrested last week when he entered the U.S. for a vacation, a source familiar with the situation said.
A Swiss government source said on Monday they did not know whether the person arrested had been charged. Neither source gave a reason for the arrest.
"The Federal Department for Foreign Affairs has knowledge of the temporary arrest of a Swiss citizen in New York and is providing support in terms of consular protection," the Swiss government said in an emailed statement, declining to provide details or name the person because of Swiss privacy laws.
According to Swiss media reports, the man was transferred to Miami and fitted with an electronic surveillance bracelet. The reports did not make it clear whether he remains in custody.
"As far as we are aware, Coutts is not a target of any U.S. investigation," the bank said.
"The U.S. is not a target market for Coutts and it is our policy to only do business with U.S. declared, or U.S. tax compliant clients," Coutts said.
The man worked with Russian clients for UBS until 2009, and began working at Coutts in 2012, according to Swiss media. UBS declined to comment.
HOLIDAY PLANS
Last year, many Swiss bankers told Reuters they were changing their holiday plans to avoid the risk of arrest or extradition.
Tax lawyer Douglas Hornung said lower-ranking bank employees may also need to be wary of travelling to the United States.
"The Swiss Bankers Association said in September that Swiss bank employees didn't have anything to worry about, and this does seem to hold for the higher echelons, but it doesn't seem to be the case for other employees," Hornung said.
The arrest is seen by some in Switzerland as the United States applying pressure to the Swiss government as they grapple to end a dispute over Swiss banks accused of helping wealthy Americans evade billions of dollars in taxes.
"It seems the United States are using intimidation methods to show that they aren't bluffing," said Jean-Christophe Schwaab, President of the French-speaking branch of The Association of Swiss Bank Employees (SBPV).
"For people in senior positions, we still advise not to travel to the United States. The situation obliges us to remain prudent," he said.
Two weeks ago, U.S. authorities charged Bank Frey executive Stefan Buck and Swiss attorney Edgar Paltzer with helping American clients hide millions of dollars in offshore accounts, one of a series of prosecutions aimed at curtailing offshore tax evasion services sold by Swiss and Swiss-style banks.
In March 2009, UBS agreed to pay $780 million to settle charges brought by the Justice Department. That settlement as well as a wave of Americans coming clean on offshore accounts has sparked a second line of attack against Swiss banks.
Those in the crosshairs include Credit Suisse
(Additional reporting by Chris Vellacott in London, Emma Farge and Martin de Sa'Pinto; Editing by Erica Billingham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-officials-arrest-swiss-banker-sources-160226131.html
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People who successfully build wealth have one trait in common: they understand the art of frugality.
Bootstrapping founders, Jeremy Greenfield and Kayvon Olomi, have taken a non-traditional route to marketing their new photo aggregation and sharing application, Divvy. They’ve hopped into a 1973 VW camper bus and are on a cross-country road trip to tour colleges around the U.S., in an attempt to get the word out about the privacy options their app allows. They left April 1st from Tulsa, and are now in the New York tri-state area, with plans to hit up Boston, MIT, Harvard, and more, before heading to Denver in three weeks. Olomi, who’s also the founder of app development marketplace AppTank, says he built Divvy to scratch a few of his own itches: the hassles of moving between Facebook and Instagram to follow his friends’ photos, the?inability?to zoom in on Instagram photos, and the inability to save those photos. But he also thinks that more private photo sharing is something today’s younger users want. A desire for more private socializing has of course fueled the rise of messaging apps and new twists on photo-sharing, as with the “disposable” photo and video sharing on Shapchat, for example. But penetrating the space as a newcomer is always tough. That’s why Divvy starts off by selling itself as a photo aggregator first and foremost. Today, the app pulls in the feeds from Facebook and Instagram, with plans to support Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Dropbox in the future. You can not only view your friends photos, but also like and comment on them using Divvy. This isn’t an entirely novel concept, since many apps and services have offered the combined albums experience, including Dropbox acquisition Snapjoy, Shutterfly acquisition ThisLife, Picturelife, Woven, Everpix, and even those not focused only on photos, like Flipboard, for example. What Divvy does differently is add its own photo-sharing features to the mix. Like a mini-social network of its own, friends can share photos to all their followers on Divvy, share selectively with individuals or groups, or share with nearby Divvy users – even if they don’t have their contact information. The nearby photo thing has been tried before too – with Color, most notably – but also with more under the radar options like Evertale’s Wink.?It’s a use case that doesn’t quite seem capable of supporting a standalone application of its own, so it makes sense for Divvy to sideline this as an option, not as the key feature. Divvy’s