The headquarters of CBH Compagnie Bancaire Helvetique SA in Geneva.
Photographer: Alberto Bernasconi/BloombergA Swiss Bank Keeps Cropping Up in Venezuelan Corruption Cases
CBH “is the go-to bank for Venezuelans to hide money,” a former prosecutor says.
As Venezuela’s chronic food shortages began intensifying, Naman Wakil, a former street peddler who made millions of dollars supplying meat to the socialist government’s food programs, decided to share the wealth.
Wakil ordered his Swiss bankers to transfer $5.9 million to relatives of state Food Minister Carlos Osorio, who’d given him the meat contracts, according to records compiled by the Venezuelan National Assembly’s audit commission. The commission labeled this series of payments from 2012 and 2013 as “suspicious transactions” in an official report.