By Agency Reporter

Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011

GENEVA: A banker working for a Credit Suisse affiliate has been arrested in the United States as part of an inquiry into suspected tax evasion by American clients, a Swiss newspaper reported Sunday, AFP reported on Sunday.

The bank manager for Credit Suisse Private Advisors “flew to the US to meet clients during a two-week visit”, but he was “arrested upon his arrival,” the German-language SonntagsZeitung reported, quoting several unnamed sources.

No charges have so far been brought against the banker, who is being questioned by US authorities and has been ordered not to leave the country, the paper said.

“The US suspects (banks) of having helped Americans in tax evasion,” the newspaper wrote.

The paper did not identify the banker and a Credit Suisse spokesman declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP.

However, a source close the Swiss banking giant told AFP that the Credit Suisse affiliate was “fully compliant with US regulations.”

From what the source knew, the arrest of the banker could be “related to activities by his former employer.”

The newspaper said the arrested banker has been working for Credit Suisse for two years and was previously with Switzerland’s biggest bak UBS.

US tax authorities started an offensive against UBS in 2008 over alleged tax evasion after questioning a former banker, prosecuting the bank through US courts and focing it to pay a $78m fine and hand over client names.

Then in November Swiss authorities said some 4,000 case files on American clients of UBS were handed over to the US, after Washington dropped an additional summons against the bank.

The handover, which marked a softening of Switzerland’s coveted banking secrecy, is the cornerstone of an accord the two governments struck in August 2009 to avert further damaging action against UBS.

A Credit Suisse representative who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Sonntag Zeitung said the arrest was “probably linked to the bad conduct of UBS towards the US” and was not related “to current activities by Credit Suis.

Source: Punch