Brazilian police arrest Credit Suisse executive

Brazilian police arrest Credit Suisse executive
AFP - Wednesday, April 23 11:28 pm

SAO PAULO (AFP) - Police in Rio on Wednesday arrested a Credit Suisse executive on suspicion of helping wealthy Brazilian clients launder money and send it abroad without paying taxes, officials said.

The suspect, identified as Christian Peter Weiss, a Swiss citizen, was seized after a search of his hotel room turned up incriminating documents, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office in Sao Paulo told AFP.

He was to be added to a list of suspects compiled as part of a long-running investigation into alleged tax evasion by rich Brazilians with the connivance of Swiss banks, the spokesman, Marcelo Oliveira, said.

Weiss, who was arrested in the upmarket Caesar Park Hotel on Rio's Ipanema beach, would likely be transferred to Sao Paulo, officials said.

"Another 16 or 17 people, most of them black market money-changers," were also targeted in the swoop, Oliveira said.

Weiss was suspected of arranging for Brazilian clients to use the money-changers to send money abroad, getting around tax laws on bank transfers and Brazilian taxes.

"Criminals use this system, too," Oliveira said, adding that some of the Brazilians who allegedly availed themselves of the operation "are known to have shady dealings."

The public relations company handling media inquiries for Credit Suisse in Brazil did not confirm the information.

Instead, it issued a statement saying the bank's representative office in Sao Paulo and the Swiss-based Credit Suisse investment bank "are independent and have no relationship with each other."

The Brazilian operations, it said "always act under the most rigorous legal and ethical principles."

Wednesday's arrest follows a bust in November of 19 people, including an executive from Credit Suisse and another from the Swiss banking giant UBS, also suspected of helping Brazilians funnel millions out of the country.

The Brazilian federal police official in charge of the operation, Ricardo Andrade Saadi, said at the time that "Swiss financial institutions" had helped Brazilians illegally avoid one billion reals (580 million dollars) in taxes over the preceding 18 months.