Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- A UBS AG official indicted last year on a charge of conspiring to help 20,000 wealthy Americans hide assets from the Internal Revenue Service was declared a fugitive by the U.S. government.

Raoul Weil, 49, former chairman of global wealth management at UBS in Zurich, was indicted Nov. 6 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. UBS, the largest Swiss bank, helped wealthy American clients evade taxes with false documents after agreeing in 2001 to identify account holders and tell the IRS about their income, the U.S. alleged.

“The clerk of the court shall remove the defendant from the court’s pending case list and shall place the defendant on the clerk’s fugitive list,” U.S. District Judge James Cohn of Fort Lauderdale wrote in an order signed today.

The Justice Department has been probing whether the bank helped Americans evade taxes and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether UBS failed to register as a broker-dealer or investment adviser. In June, former UBS private banker Bradley Birkenfeld pleaded guilty to helping Igor Olenicoff, a California billionaire, dodge taxes and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

UBS said Nov. 12, the day the indictment against Weil was unsealed, that it was replacing him on an interim basis. Weil faces as long as five years in prison as well as a fine of $250,000 if convicted.

Weil’s Denial

“Mr. Weil denies any suggestion that he was aware of, engaged in or tolerated any illegal conduct in the operation of UBS’s U.S.-cross-border business,” Weil’s attorney, Aaron Marcu, said in an e-mailed statement. “Mr. Weil is a highly respected banking executive in Switzerland with an unblemished record for integrity.”

Mark Arena, a UBS spokesman, declined to comment.

Weil was promoted to chief executive officer of global wealth management at UBS in July 2007, taking over the position from Marcel Rohner, who became the bank’s chief executive officer. From 2002 to 2007, Weil served as head of the wealth- management business, according to the indictment.

Weil gave subordinates at UBS incentives to increase their business with U.S. clients, knowing that they were violating the 2001 agreement to identify customer names, prosecutors alleged in the November indictment.

In 2002, Weil and other executives hid from the IRS the results of an internal audit that showed the bank wasn’t meeting the terms of the agreement, according to the November indictment.

UBS has said it’s cooperating with the U.S. investigations. In July, it said it would stop offering offshore-banking services to American clients through non-U.S. branches after a Senate committee exposed its role in tax-evasion schemes.

The case is U.S. v. Weil, 08-60322, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Fort Lauderdale).

To contact the reporter on this story: Carlyn Kolker in New York at ckolker@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 13, 2009 20:21 EST