Crime not prevented Ex-CS employee charged with money laundering
A Credit Suisse employee has been charged in connection with loans to Mozambican state-owned companies. CS and its successor company UBS are accused of failing to prevent the crime, according to the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland.
01.12.2025, 11:08
01.12.2025, 12:11
SDA
An employee of Credit Suisse has been charged with granting loans to Mozambican state-owned companies totaling over two billion US dollars. CS and its successor company UBS are accused of failing to prevent the offense. The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) criticized organizational deficiencies in this context on Monday, as detailed in a press release.
The loans were granted by the Credit Suisse financial group in 2013 with three Mozambican state-owned companies. In 2016, they became known as the "Mozambique debt scandal". In 2020, the OAG opened initial criminal proceedings in this connection, which it is currently conducting against two natural persons on suspicion of money laundering and aiding and abetting the bribery of foreign public officials.
Based on findings from these first criminal proceedings, the OAG opened a second criminal investigation in 2023, which it has now concluded with the submission of the indictment dated November 25, 2025, according to the statement.
Money allegedly obtained through criminal acts
The indictment centers on a business relationship between CS and a foreign company that was allegedly active in business consulting and asset management and was presumably involved in the events surrounding the "Mozambique debt scandal", the OAG reported on Monday.
In spring 2016, funds amounting to around 7.86 million US dollars were received in the company's accounts at CS in Switzerland, transferred by the Mozambique Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The funds received by CS from Mozambique were suspected to have originated from a so-called "running fee" agreed between the account holder and Mozambican state-owned companies and guaranteed by the state, paid out for alleged services in connection with the aforementioned credit transactions.
According to the indictment, the funds received from Mozambique - the "running fee" - were obtained or benefited from criminal acts in Mozambique, in particular corruption in the form of bribery of Mozambican public officials and disloyal conduct in Mozambique.
Employee probably in charge of investigations
Shortly after receiving the credit, the account holder transferred USD 7 million of the funds received to bank accounts in the United Arab Emirates. According to the OAG, CS initiated investigations into this business relationship on the basis of this account movement. The accused CS compliance employee was allegedly in charge of carrying out these investigations.
Although, according to the indictment, she had numerous indications of a possible criminal origin of the funds received from Mozambique, the compliance employee is said to have recommended to the management of CS and Credit Suisse Group not to file a report with the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS), but rather to balance the business relationship.
In the course of the balancing of accounts, in the fall of 2016, the funds originally originating from suspected criminal acts in Mozambique and still remaining at CS at that time in the amount of around USD 609,000 and CHF 28,000 were transferred to accounts abroad.
The OAG accuses the accused compliance employee of having caused or allowed the remaining funds of suspected criminal origin to be moved abroad and thus laundered by recommending the balancing of the business relationship and by carelessly carrying out the money laundering investigation assigned to her.
CS only reported suspected money laundering to MROS in 2019 after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) made public criminal proceedings in connection with the Mozambique loan transactions.
