Latest update April 26th, 2026 12:45 AM
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Honesty pays, but…
Every day it is becoming clearer that the world, particularly the financial sphere, will not be tolerating slipshod systems that encourage wholesale lawlessness, which, in a number of cases, leads to criminal activities and obviously ill-gotten gains. Tax evasion, money laundering and other such crimes will have no safe haven in the global village.
Last Monday, following an extensive, years-long investigation by US law enforcement authorities that to date has produced indictments of eight of its executives, global financial giant Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to conspiracy to aid and assist US taxpayers in filing false income tax returns and other documents with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and has agreed to pay $2.6 billion, the highest ever penalty in a criminal tax case investigation in the US
According to reports, as part of a plea agreement, along with agreements made with state and federal partners, Credit Suisse will pay $1.8 billion to the Department of Justice for the US Treasury, $100 million to the Federal Reserve, and $715 million to the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Less than three months ago, Credit Suisse paid approximately $196 million in disgorgement, interest and penalties to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating the federal securities laws by providing cross-border brokerage and investment advisory services to US clients without first registering with the SEC. That settlement is reportedly also reflected in the recent plea agreement.
US Attorney General Eric Holder firmly asserted that the case “shows that no financial institution, no matter its size or global reach, is above the law. Credit Suisse conspired to help US citizens hide assets in offshore accounts in order to evade paying taxes. When a bank engages in misconduct this brazen, it should expect that the Justice Department will pursue criminal prosecution to the fullest extent possible, as has happened here.”
Holder’s deputy James Cole is reported as stating that “Credit Suisse’s guilty plea is just the latest effort by the department to slam the door shut on undeclared bank accounts, phony trusts and other foreign schemes used by US taxpayers to evade taxes. We have taken public actions in the Cayman Islands and several other Caribbean countries. And we are engaged in law enforcement actions around the world that are not yet public.”
It was determined that Credit Suisse employed a variety of means to assist US clients in concealing their undeclared accounts, among them: assisting clients in using sham entities to hide undeclared accounts;
failing to maintain in the United States records related to the accounts; destroying account records sent to the United States for client review; using Credit Suisse managers and employees as unregistered investment advisors on undeclared accounts; facilitating withdrawals of funds from the undeclared accounts by either providing hand-delivered cash in the United States or using Credit Suisse’s correspondent bank accounts in the United States; structuring transfers of funds to evade currency transaction reporting requirements; and providing offshore credit and debit cards to repatriate funds in the undeclared accounts.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen’s assessment of the case was particularly interesting.
“Pursuing international tax evasion is a priority area for IRS Criminal Investigation, and we will continue to follow the money here in the United States and around the world,” he said. “Today’s guilty plea is another important milestone in ongoing law enforcement efforts to investigate the use of offshore accounts to evade taxes. People should no longer feel comfortable hiding their assets and income from the IRS.”
In Guyana, there are the powerful among us who are stealing like there is no tomorrow, and carrying on uninhibited money rackets with the knowledge, or more appropriately the belief, that the “outside world” has no interest in their activities. Tax evasion and money laundering schemes abound. These untouchables and others of their ilk have forever thrived due to a lack of systems and the lax attitude in our society.
We are beginning to show up on the world’s financial radar, but still there’s clearly no hurry to get things right. A prime example of this is the slothful approach to find common ground and put in place satisfactory anti-money laundering legislation.
As a popular American cartoonist once said, “Honesty pays, but it doesn’t seem to pay enough to suit some people”.
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