Suisse Secrets unearth $56 million in homeless Pakistani man’s accounts

.. by Haroon Hayder

Credit Suisse Leaks have revealed that a homeless Pakistan man once held a whopping $56 million in two corporate bank accounts in Switzerland’s second-largest bank.

Mohammad Javed is the homeless man in question. Javed and his mother have been living near a sewage canal in Lahore. They became homeless after their house was demolished by the city’s civil administration. He earns around Rs. 500 daily by selling worn clothes.

Javed has no idea how his name got registered to this wealth, adding that he has never traveled outside Pakistan. Javed has no bank account in Pakistan either, let alone Switzerland.

Although Javed denies connection to the Credit Suisse accounts, both accounts were indeed opened under his name, Credit Suisse Leaks have confirmed.

If I had this money, I wouldn’t have been living beside this sewage drain together with my family. If I had this money, I would have been living in an upscale neighborhood.

The development also highlights a grim reality that the practice of opening fake bank accounts is not limited to just Pakistan.

How Did it Happen?

According to details, Mohammad Javed was born on 29 November 1977. NADRA record shows that he is the only person in the country with this date of birth.

A total of 72 million Swiss Francs which equals to $56 million were held in two accounts opened under Javed’s name. Corporate accounts indicate that someone had registered a company under Javed’s name before opening the accounts.

The first account was opened in 2003 and the second in 2005 while both of them were shut down in 2006.

Failure of the Bank

Maira Martini, an anti-money laundering expert at Transparency International, has termed the development as a ‘due diligence failure’ on the part of Credit Suisse.

Speaking in this regard, Maira said that the bank’s compliance department, which is responsible for ensuring that clients fulfill all the legal prerequisites, failed to effectively scrutinize the documents submitted to open the corporate accounts by stealing Javed’s identity.

Maira suggested Credit Suisse introduce different measures to effectively verify the identity of the account holders. She also recommended the bank enhance its due diligence mechanism to authenticate the source of income of the account holders.

Not the First Time

A number of former Credit Suisse employees have disclosed to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that the senior administration of the bank used to force the compliance officers not to adhere to compliance protocols while dealing with big clients

Statment From Credit Suisse

In an official statement, Credit Suisse said that the bank has made a significant investment in tackling financial crimes in the last ten year as part of the financial reforms in the Swiss banking sector.

As the leading global financial institution, the bank is fully aware of its responsibility to account holders and the Swiss financial system as a whole to uphold the enforced standards. .. Source

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