An unknown number of entrepreneurs, politicians and company chiefs are squirming tonight after controversial former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange two CDs of secret data that supposedly contains the names of 2000 companies and individuals who have used Swiss bank accounts to evade tax.
Elmer gave the data to Assange at a special news conference in London overnight. Elmer, who was fired by the bank Julius Baer back in 2002, says the names included in the documents include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic”.
He says there are up to 40 politicians and “pillars of society” included in the documents.
Elmer, who worked for eight years in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, says he wanted to give the documents to Assange so that more people would understand how the wealthy used offshore accounts to evade tax.
“I have been there, I have done the job, I know what the day-to-day business is, I know how much is documented there and how much is not,” he told reporters.
“I am against the system. I know how the system works. I want to let society know how this system works because it’s damaging our society. The money is hiding in offshore banking secret jurisdictions.”
Wikileaks says it will take some weeks to verify the data before it is released.
Assange said he wanted to support Elmer as he is a “whistleblower and he has important things to say”.
The parallels between Assange and Elmer are certainly striking.
While Assange is currently fighting against extradition from Britain to Sweden, where has been charged with sexual assault, Elmer is set to stand trial charged with breaching Switzerland’s banking secrecy laws and threatening staff at his former employer.
Elmer’s allegations have been dismissed by various Swiss banking giants. His former employee Julius Baer told Bloomberg that Elmer “embarked in 2004 on a personal intimidation campaign and vendetta against Julius Baer” and said he “also used falsified documents and made death threats against employees.”
However, it’s likely that tax regulators around Europe and in the United States will be keen to get a look at what is the latest in a rush of secret banking documents leaked in recent years.
In 2008, a former employee of Liechtenstein’s biggest bank created worldwide controversy when he sold data on client accounts in the tiny European banking centre to the German secret service for a reported €5 million. .
In 2010, German officials also bought a computer disc containing data on secret Swiss bank accounts for a reported €2.5 million.
The purchases have apparently been bargains – German magazine Der Spiegel says German tax authorities were able to recover €1.6 billion in unpaid taxes from the holders of these accounts last year.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
