More than 1 billion francs or $1.03 billion tied to the Petrobras corruption scandal have flowed into Swiss bank accounts. Switzerland’s federal prosecutor is struggling with dozens of related enquiries.

The Petrobras corruption scandal hangs like a Damocles sword over the Swiss banks entangled in the affair, and the federal prosecutor’s corruption and money laundering probe, together with Brazil and the U.S., has been running for more than 4 years.

Investigators in the operation «Lava Jato» have come up against a complex web of corruption and money flows, many of which have ended up in Swiss banks.

1 Billion Francs Frozen

Swiss prosecutors have employed a task force which has probed around 40 Swiss banks and 1,000 bank contacts in recent years, and frozen rising amounts of money with intransparent or suspicious origins, the federal prosecutor said in its annual report on Friday. The sum of frozen monies had reached more than 1 billion francs ($1.03 billion) by the end of 2017, according to the report.

Probes have been closed in the Odebrecht corruption case, with the federal prosecutors returning some 200 million francs in funds to the Brazilian authorities.

«Who's Who» of Swiss Banks

Some of the Swiss banks involved in the Petrobras affair are well known: PBK Bank in Lugano was earlier this year fined for contravening money laundering laws. In addition procedures against the Ticino BSI, since taken over by EFG International, are known, as well as Coutts International, whose client assets are now with Union Bancaire Privée.
Names like J. Safra Sarasin, HSBC, Lombard Odier, Pictet, Banque Cramer as well as Julius Baer have also come under the prosecutor's spotlight.

Julius Baer is reportedly the subject of an enforcement probe by regulator Finma due to, among other things, suspected violations of due care requirements with Brazilian and Venezuelan clients.

Dozens of Aid Requests

The Swiss prosecutors are no way near completing their probes, which now run to some 50, which have been submitted since the publicity follow the conviction of the Odebrecht conglomerate. The taskforce is also focusing on individuals and companies, according to the report, which provided no further detail.

The Petrobras scandal has taken on huge proportions, with monies from state projects being systematically siphoned off to political parties and politicians, and with some of the billion-dollar flows ending up in Switzerland.

Michael Lauber

Swiss federal prosecutor Michael Lauber (pictured above) and his task force have focused on bank transactions in Brazil, and if money laundering was established, then the prosecutors have had to follow the links to some 40 Swiss financial institutions. For most of them the scandal isn’t over yet.