this rout that the authorities did not want to see

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From the laundering of drugs by the Bulgarian mafia to the secret loans granted to Mozambique, the big Zurich bank accumulated scandals. With impunity…

From our correspondent in Geneva, Ian Hamel

The Swiss authorities let Credit Suisse run into the wall for more than a decade, with its foot on the accelerator.
© Hakan Nural/Anadolu Agency via AFP

Published on 03/20/2023 at 4:22 p.m.

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DAt the beginning of February, when Credit Suisse announced a loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs (7.4 billion euros) for 2022, in Geneva, a press cartoon showed a banker, almost smiling, who announced: “Don’t panic , the coffers are still full! showing these overflowing with… pans. On another note, in Zurich, the very liberal The New Zurich Times decided to call Credit Suisse “the main provider of scandals in the global financial center”.

But at the time of the disappearance of this giant of the Swiss economy – it financed, in the 19^e century, the drilling of the Saint-Gothard railway tunnel, linking Northern Europe to Italy – one can only wonder about the inaction of the Swiss authorities who, for more than a decade, left Cred …