C2C... In the first half, retired financial industry professional Bradley Birkenfeld discussed how he blew the whistle on decades of dirty dealings by Swiss banks — and brought down a corrupt system that enabled powerful, moneyed people to hide assets and evade taxes. His testimony helped the US Treasury recover $15 billion in back taxes, fines and penalties -- and forever ended offshore banking as we know it. While the privacy of the Swiss bank accounts began as a positive thing, by the 1960s and 70s, abuse started to become rampant, especially with the globalization of the world. It wasn't just the wealthy in the US, but people around the world like African dictators who were secretly hiding their money in Switzerland, he cited.
When Birkenfeld, who'd been a private banker for UBS, decided to blow the whistle, revealing his first hand knowledge of what was going on, the US Dept. of Justice charged him with conspiracy, but he still brought the information to the US Senate, the SEC, and the IRS. Ironically, though he ended up serving a 30-month sentence in federal prison, he was given a $104 million whistleblower award from the IRS, upon his release. Back when the Senate was holding investigative hearings on UBS in 2008, he said that UBS only gave up 4,700 out of 19,000 accounts in question. Then Senator Obama was on this Committee, but he didn't attend, and Birkenfeld claimed he was actually taking millions in donations from UBS for his presidential campaign.
Website(s):
lucifersbanker.com
Book(s):
Lucifer's Banker