GENEVA (AFP) — Swiss officials have gone to Washington for talks on tax evasion after a former employee of Swiss banking giant UBS admitted conspiring to help US clients dodge millions of dollars in taxes, a report said Friday.
The delegation from the finance and justice ministries will discuss a request for judicial cooperation with their US counterparts in the wake of the guilty plea by banker Bradley Birkenfeld before a federal court in Florida, justice ministry spokesman Folco Galli told Swiss news agency ATS.
Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to conspiring with co-defendant Mario Staggl to hide some 200 million dollars, liable to 7.2 million dollars in US taxes, through an elaborate system of fraud, the US Department of Justice said.
He admitted that between 2001 and 2006, while he was a director of UBS' private banking division, he met frequently with wealthy Americans wanting to conceal their assets abroad.
Birkenfeld said he and Staggl as well as other managers, also advised clients to conceal their assets by buying jewels, art and luxury goods using the money in their Swiss accounts and then deposit them in Swiss safety boxes.
The New York Times reported that the case could involve some 20,000 US citizens.
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