Ex-Swiss banker to give Wikileaks 2,000 “celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from US, UK who secreted away money for tax-evasion purposes”
by ilene - January 17th, 2011 5:35 pm
Courtesy of Mish
Yahoo!Finance reports Ex-Swiss banker to hand account files to WikiLeaks.
A former Swiss banker was on Monday due to hand over files to WikiLeaks which he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told Britain’s Observer newspaper on Sunday that the documents include details of about 2,000 accounts held in offshore financial centers. He says the account holders include "high net worth" celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from the U.S., Britain and Asia.
Elmer’s press conference comes two days before he is due to appear before a Zurich regional court to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland’s strict banking secrecy laws.
He told the Observer newspaper he planned to disclose the new set of files to expose activities in offshore financial centers. "The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.
Fox News has a few additional quotes in Ex-banker says he’s giving Wikileaks files on rich
Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.
He has previously offered files to WikiLeaks on financial activities in the Cayman Islands and faces a court hearing in Zurich on Wednesday to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland’s strict banking secrecy laws.
"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London’s Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.
Britain’s tax authority declined to comment when asked about Assange’s plan to supply details of alleged wrongdoing.
Under the terms of his release on bail, Assange must live at the mansion home of Vaughan Smith, the owner of the Frontline Club. He has compared the regime to "high-tech house arrest," but has recently promised that the flow of leaked documents published by his organization would increase.
SEC Brings GIGANTIC Insider Trading Case Against The Famous Wyly Brothers Of Texas
by ilene - August 2nd, 2010 7:57 pm
This post from Business Insider sets the stage for the next post by Cassandra Does Tokyo which discusses insider trading in general. – Ilene
SEC Brings GIGANTIC Insider Trading Case Against The Famous Wyly Brothers Of Texas

Image: www.charlesandsamwyly.com
Courtesy of Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider/Clusterstock
This evening the SEC announced a massive fraud charge against Dallas-based investors The Wyly brothers.
As Paul Murphy at FT Alphaville notes, the charge — which pertains to activity taking place over 13 years, worth $550 million — makes Rajaratnam and Martha Stewart look like small potatoes.
The gist of the allegations: The brothers Wyly (Samuel and Charles J.) used their various board seats and a network of offshore accounts to trade and conceal their holdings.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged brothers Samuel E. Wyly and Charles J. Wyly, Jr. of Dallas with violating federal securities laws governing ownership and trading of securities by corporate insiders. The Wyly brothers reaped more than $550 million in undisclosed gains while sitting on corporate boards by trading stock in those public companies through hidden entities located in foreign jurisdictions to conceal their ownership and trading of those securities.
The SEC alleges that the brothers created an elaborate sham system of trusts and subsidiary companies in the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands to sell more than $750 million worth of stock in four public companies for which they were corporate directors. They also committed an insider trading violation in one of the companies for an unlawful gain of more than $31.7 million.
Along with the Wylys, the SEC charged their attorney Michael C. French of Dallas and their stockbroker Louis J. Schaufele III of Dallas for their roles in the fraudulent scheme. French was on the board of directors at three of the companies.
"The cloak of secrecy has been lifted from the complex web of foreign structures used by the Wylys to evade the securities laws," said Lorin L. Reisner, Deputy Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. "They used these structures to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of gains in violation of the disclosure requirements for corporate insiders."
According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the public companies…