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Years of graft at Venezuelan oil firm PDVSA represents one of the biggest financial pilferings in recent history. Swiss banks are in the midst, suspected of laundering the funds – but investigations appear to have fizzled.

Swiss banks first surfaced as handlers of illicit Venezuelan oil money in 2016, when U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara sought records from more than 18 of them on of bribery at PDVSA, a state-owned oil and natural gas company. Precisely two weeks later, Switzerland's financial regulator built its annual meeting around a frank warning to banks on money laundering.

The new cases emerging four years ago, Finma said at the time, indicate corruption and rinsing of several billion in funds. At the time, Malaysian 1MDB as well as FIFA, soccer's global governing body, were attention-grabbing cases – but few people were as familiar with PDVSA.

Hugely Wealthy «Bolichicos»

That changed two years later when one of Julius Baer's former private bankers, Matthias Krull, was arrested in Miami. But numerous banks other than the Zurich-based wealth manager were also involved in rinsing Venezuelan PDVSA money offshore.

They had catered to so-called bolichicos, a crop of well-connected, younger businessmen who had grown rich under the regime of Hugo Chavez. Unimaginably wealthy: investigative website «Infodio,» which is devoted to PDVSA corruption, calculates that $1.5 trillion disappeared from the company's coffers between 2002 and 2014. 

Billions of PDVSA Funds

The plunder is set against hyperinflation, shortages of food and medicine, and unemployment created by the government of Nicolas Maduro, the current president. PDVSA billions flowed through Swiss bank accounts in the U.S. and in Spain, to be invested in real estate and companies, for example.

The U.S. is conducting several probes into corruption at PDVSA. In Switzerland, banks in 2015 lodging alerts with MROS – the Bern-based office that is banks' first port of call when they suspect money laundering, the Swiss prosecutor said. The alerts were «regarding a significant number of banking relationships,» the prosecutor told finews.com.

Swiss Mothball Probe

The matter was escalated to the Swiss attorney general two years later, but an investigation was mothballed in April, the prosecutor said. Bern couldn't obtain unbiased legal aid from Venezuela, where Maduro is holding on despite opposition leader Juan Guaido, who was recognized as an interim president, last year by dozens of countries including – crucially – the U.S.

Swiss justice officials have addressed countless requests for legal aid from other countries – including the U.S. Until now, no bank has been accused of laundering Venezuelan graft money. The Swiss as well as Liechtenstein ties to PDVSA are well-known: besides Credit Suisse and its former subsidiary Clariden Leu, UBS,  Julius Baer, EFG International, as well as Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique, or CBH, and Lugano's Banca Zarattini, roughly one dozen more banks are likely involved.

Bank of Choice: CBH

The bank which pops up most frequently in U.S. justice documents is CBH: the Genevan wealth manager is suspected of laundering $4.5 billion in just two years until 2014 for Luis and Ignacio Oberto, Venezuelan brothers.