A private bank in Switzerland has agreed to pay a $122.9 million fine for helping wealthy US citizens hide a staggering $5.6 billion in assets.
According to the Justice Department, Banque Pictet & Cie allowed Americans to secretly hold billions of dollars in 1,637 bank accounts from 2008 to 2014.
Officials at the Justice Department say the shady accounts shielded the clients from paying $50.6 million in taxes.
“Today, Banque Pictet et Cie admitted to actively helping U.S. taxpayers use coded accounts, foreign trusts and entities, nominee beneficiaries and other deceits to conceal their income and assets abroad.
For this criminal conduct the bank will be paying nearly $122.9 million in restitution, disgorgement of fees and a financial penalty, and is required to fully cooperate with investigations relating to these secret accounts.”
The fine will be used, in part, to pay taxes that the bank’s clients were avoiding and recoup any profit that the bank made on the accounts.
The firm is cooperating with the Justice Department and is also required to support future investigations into the people who hid their assets at the bank.
Banque Pictet et Cie is owned by The Pictet Group, which was founded back in 1805 and has about $691 billion in assets.
The Pictet Group primarily operates in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Bahamas and has two main business divisions – institutional asset management and private banking for individuals.
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