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New Delhi: Even as Wikileaks has threatened to reveal the names of 2,000 Swiss bank
account holders, an Indian television channel Wednesday claimed it
has received "explosive details" from a
banker-turned-whistleblower.
"Headlines Today has received the explosive details from
whistleblower Rudolf Elmer who has provided Wikileaks with the
information collected during the 20 years he worked for Julius
Baer, a highly reputed Swiss bank," the channel said.
"The Headlines Today investigation team scanned document after
document looking for an Indian connection in the maze of Swiss
bank accounts. The channel identified the names of several
individuals and firms that could have operations based in India,"
it said.
"The one name that kept cropping up again and again was that of
Annapurna."
The channel said there were three companies with name -- Annapurna
Convertible Ltd (A/C number: 420331), Annapurna Leverage Ltd (A/C
number:4270390) and Annapurna Convertible USD (A/C number: 431916)
-- with accounts opened in the New York branch of Julius Baer.
The three, the channel added, had stashed away $57 million (Rs.259
crore), $18.6 million (Rs.84 crore) and $10.3 million (Rs.45 crore),
respectively and all of them were managed by Pius Fisch of Fisch
Asset Management.
The other name to come out was that of Asad Ali Khan and his wife
Zahida, who was a co-account holder. Khan had siphoned off a huge
amount of money to the Julius Baer Bank in Cayman Islands, the
channel claimed.
"He and his wife were directors of a company named Unicorp
Services in Cayman Islands," the channel said, adding: "Of course,
there was no way to prove whether Khan was the real identity of
the person who opened the account or who was behind Annapurna."
The channel said the names in the CD were most likely to be fronts
for individuals and corporations. A majority of the accounts of
companies for which details are available are based in Cayman
Islands.
"I have to go through the data, just came across some information
about India that's basically about Swiss Partner, a company which
basically provided the insurance company for rich internationals
and India is mentioned," Elmer was quoted as saying.
"I think that the owner of the former Julius Baer group is very
much in the business of India. They actually hired Indian
investment managers sitting in India and getting money out of
India."
Elmer also reportedly explained to the channel the manner in which
Swiss banks operated and also said Swiss companies had devised
ways to hide the identity of original account holders so that they
can't be tracked.
Elmer said while he was serving as the bank's chief operating
officer in Cayman Islands, he found evidence that his bank was
helping its clients evade tax. He said he was fired when he
brought this evidence to the notice of his bosses in Switzerland.
But Julius Baer, in a clarification to Headlines Today, said Elmer
was dismissed in December 2002 as he had "exhibited behaviour that
was detrimental and unacceptable to the bank".
The bank said much of the information given by Elmer was either
fake or falsified. Headlines Today also added that it cannot
independently verify Elmer's documents that purportedly contain
details of bank accounts from 1997-2002.
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