69 Zambian hold $48.3 Million in secret Swiss Accounts (Part I)

By Sidney Kawimbe

Last month, local and international news outlets were awash with screaming headlines that 69 Zambians had stashed over $ 48.3 Million in Swiss accounts. Immediately, the question that came to my mind was whether it was wrong or not to deposit money in an account home or abroad. The next and crucially pertinent question was whether this money was illegally obtained or was proceeds of suspected illicit business transactions for depositors to decide to deposit abroad. According to Zambia Weekly newspaper, the leaked files implicate 69 people with links to Zambia, 19% of who have a Zambian passport or nationality. From 1988 to 2006, people connected to Zambia opened 44 client accounts. The maximum amount of money associated with a client connected to Zambia was $12.8 million.

Various categories of persons including popes, presidents, prime ministers, corrupt dictators, wealthy business men, and drug dealers have all used and benefited from the banking secrecy laws of Switzerland. As a result Swiss economy has been described as an underground economy, a deposit box for dirty money and a “dirt-driven economy”.

In this exposition, I will try to bring to fore the reasons why some people “hide” money in Swiss account and also try to explain why Switzerland is so popular to individuals and companies who hold suspected proceeds of looting of sovereign treasuries and corporates. Mention the words Swiss bank account and it can bring to mind corrupt politicians hiding vast sums of money, drug lords laundering ill-gotten gains or filthy rich American citizens trying to avoid paying taxes.

Switzerland, a country with a human population of 8 Million and 1.5 Million cows considers the relationship between a banker and a client to be the same as the relationship between a doctor or a lawyer and their client. If you go to a doctor or lawyer and talk about your problems, the doctor or lawyer has a duty not to reveal this information to the authorities except under very narrow circumstances. This is also the case with Zambia.

However, this is different from most other countries in which there is no relationship between bankers and accountants and their clients. In particular, in the United States, if you tell your lawyer that you have been evading taxes in the past, they are both legally and ethically bound not to tell the government and will get into a great deal of trouble if they do so. This isn’t true for most bankers and accountants.

Back to Switzerland, according to Article 47 of the Swiss Federal Banking Act of 8 November 1934, “Any person who…has revealed a secret that was entrusted to him or her or of which he or she had knowledge by means of his or her practice or employment…will be punished by imprisonment………or by a fine. Violation of secrecy remains punishable even when the practice or employment has terminated or any other separation with the concerned employee……”

Essentially, Swiss Banks allow you to deposit money into an account without having a name attached to that account. That, combined with the fact that bank employees will face criminal charges for revealing bank or customer information, means that an individual from any country can deposit money into a bank account, keeps information secret. Since money in a Swiss bank account officially belongs to the “account holder”, and since the account holder information is not kept on file at the bank, there is no way to prove that one even opened a Swiss bank account.

In part II, I will dwell on the following:

how money is deposited in those accounts
How withdraws are made

How the proceeds are laundered and cleaned latter on entry into the formal banking system

Posted by Kunda on March 30, 2015. Filed under LATEST NEWS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

13 Responses to 69 Zambian hold $48.3 Million in secret Swiss Accounts (Part I)

Judge Joe Bidden

March 30, 2015 at 11:01 am

I subscribe to the fact that Swiss accounts come in form of offshore investment, corporate accounts, national, private accounts etc that means I am at liberty to deposit my money in those accounts without any knowledge of govt officials, or bank of Zambia as long as my money is sourced thru legit means.
kambusu

March 30, 2015 at 11:14 am

Good investigative writing. So educative that I will be looking forward to your Part II. Keep up
Herve Stalin

March 30, 2015 at 11:30 am

it translates to an average of less than a million dollars each. not much!
oliver mudenda

March 30, 2015 at 11:34 am

So when one investgates this you discover that most of the funds are for politicians
Seethat

March 30, 2015 at 12:48 pm

I read the story similar to this one, it was talking about INDIAN nationals starching money in the swiss accounts, the money was about $48.3m? Tumfweko is this a mere coincidence?

You did the same with a story on prostitutes charging clients on MOBILE money, first it was in Zimbabwe, and then after one week it was in Zambia, the only thing you changed was the name of the country.
vito

March 30, 2015 at 1:29 pm

Come on people. A bank can not release such information just like that. The are Swiss banks, the protect there customers
FREDRICK CHUNGA

March 30, 2015 at 2:30 pm

I am a Zambia i wish to open an account in swiss.I can not wait to reading the part II.
shasha

March 30, 2015 at 3:48 pm

But who are these Zambians?
Kapanga

March 30, 2015 at 4:14 pm

Any names, familiar names?
Iwillsaywhatiwant

March 30, 2015 at 5:23 pm

Ya Kawimbe! Useless article! Tell us who? Otherwise you are wasting our time!
club zero

March 30, 2015 at 8:11 pm

But how did u get the information?bafikala stay away from secrets
buholy bwabufi

March 30, 2015 at 10:17 pm

If you follow the ways of the pastors, soon it will be Witchcraft accusations against children in Zambia, Just like Congo, study the pattern of ignorance of those superstitious savages”