May 6, 2016
Geneva prosecutors are widening their probe into Credit Suisse Group AG and one of its ex-wealth managers, identifying another three former employees as suspects in a case looking into unauthorized trades on the accounts of rich eastern Europeans, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
The trio have been summoned for questioning later this month by the Geneva prosecutor’s office on suspicion of money laundering, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is ongoing. The men, along with the ex-banker at the heart of the case, can’t be named because of Swiss rules covering identification of suspects in criminal cases.
Prosecutors and Credit Suisse clients are looking at records from the trading of the ex-wealth manager, who admitted to the bank last year that he carried out trades without knowledge of customers including billionaire and former Georgian prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Credit Suisse is seeking to restore investor confidence as it accelerates a restructuring after unrelated losses on trading positions at its investment bank caught management unaware. Its stock fell 1.3 percent Friday in Zurich, bringing its decline this year to 38 percent.
The new suspects include a colleague of the banker until his departure in 2008, while the two others worked for Credit Suisse in the 1990s and then separately became business partners of the wealth manager. A new criminal complaint, the fourth against the French main suspect, has been filed by a Russian company for fraud. He’s in a Geneva prison, charged with fraud and criminal mismanagement.