This material belongs to: Globovision.
The Swiss authorities are investigating several Swiss banks to determine whether they fully complied with the rules to prevent money laundering in relation to the corruption scheme of the state-owned company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).
“FINMA (the body that oversees the financial markets in Switzerland) has been in contact with several Swiss banks regarding the PDVSA case,” confirmed the entity’s spokesman, Vinzenz Mathys.
He specified that within the mandate he has, “that body is clarifying with certain banks if they have been involved and to what extent with the PDVSA case.”
It also investigates how they applied and complied with the current Swiss regulations to prevent the entry of capital funds from acts of corruption.
Mathys indicated that FINMA is currently investigating specific indications that there were violations of the regulations against money laundering in connection with different cases in South America, and not only of the Venezuelan PDVSA.
FINMA declined to identify the banks it investigates, but the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper published in its issue on Wednesday that among the banks involved is Credit Suisse, which did not respond to the request of this means to rule on this case.
The newspaper affirms the former energy minister Nervis Villalobos, collected millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for advantages in bidding processes or the rapid payment of bills when the country was already suffering from a liquidity crisis.
