Swiss Representative to Taiwan Jost Feer said that Switzerland is committed to combating money laundering and will offer legal assistance to Taiwan once evidence is provided in the high-profile case of alleged money laundering embroiling Taiwan’s former first family.
“Both [Taiwanese and Swiss prosecutors] need to provide evidence for certain things and if they match, obviously they can prove something is going on,” Feer said in a recent interview. “If it becomes clear enough, evidence is around that, whether it is embezzlement or whatever, of course they [the Swiss authorities] have to look into it.”
Feer, director of the Trade Office of Swiss Industries (TOSI), made the remarks in relation to a scandal implicating former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his family for alleged money laundering through overseas bank accounts.
PHOTO: CNA
Taiwanese authorities were informed in January by the international anti-money-laundering organization Egmont Group that members of the former first family had opened a number of bank accounts in other countries, including the US, the Cayman Islands, Singapore and Switzerland.
In July, Taiwan received a request for assistance from the Swiss authorities in probing alleged money laundering by Chen Shui-bian’s son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), and his daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚), in Switzerland.
Feer pointed out that Taiwan is not a special case and that as long as there is evidence of criminal activities, the Swiss authorities will look into it, adding that Switzerland is not a haven for money laundering, even though one-third of the world’s assets management is concentrated there.
“If they [Swiss officials] see something suspicious with regard to money laundering criteria or principles, they have to follow up, whatever, whoever it is,” he said.
Feer said that unless there is criminal activity, the Swiss government has no access to accounts.
“We still have the bank secrecy law ... so the government does not have access to your bank account unless there is suspicion and then it has to go through the legal system for evaluation before it can open or freeze your account,” he said.
According to Switzerland’s Federal Act on International Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, frozen capital assets can be released to foreign authorities if the assets are evidently of criminal origin.
Asked if a judicial assistance agreement between Switzerland and Taiwan could help the investigation, Feer replied that there is “no need. For the time being, there is no discussion.”
Citing the Lafayette frigate case as an example, Feer said that the two countries worked well in the absence of a judicial aid agreement on the investigation of the controversial sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.
Chen Shui-bian said on Aug. 14 that he did not honestly account for his election campaign expenses and that his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), funneled surplus funds from election campaign contributions into overseas bank accounts.
The former president said that all the surplus funds were handled by his wife and that he had no idea until early this year that his wife had made such transactions.
He denied that the money had any connection with the “state affairs fund” case in which the former first lady was charged with corruption and forgery in November 2006 for using receipts provided by others to claim reimbursements totaling NT$14.8 million from the president’s “state affairs fund” between July 2002 and March 2006.
Chen Chih-chung, his wife, Huang Jui-ching, and the former first lady’s older brother, Wu Ching-mao (吳景茂), are listed as suspects in the case and have been barred from leaving the country.
The TOSI, a non-government organization established in Taiwan in 1982 and operated by the Swiss Taiwan Trading Group in Zurich, functions as the de facto Swiss embassy in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic relations.
Feer, however, said that the office is not involved in the probe into the case, as such legal procedures are not coordinated through administrative channels.
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