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FRAUD

UBS pays €1.1-billion bail in French ‘tax fraud’ case

Swiss banking giant UBS has made a €1.1-billion ($1.4-billion) bail payment for allegedly helping rich French clients to hide money in Switzerland, a lawyer for the bank said on Tuesday.

Published: 30 September 2014 19:00 CEST
UBS pays €1.1-billion bail in French 'tax fraud' case
Photo: UBS

The payment "has been made, subject to the legal recourse open to UBS," said the lawyer, Denis Chemla.

The bank was charged with tax fraud in July and ordered to pay the hefty bail. It appealed, but the appeals court ruled the amount should stand.

UBS plans to make further appeals but it was ordered to pay the amount by September 30th.

UBS's Swiss business is suspected of illegally canvassing French customers and setting up dual accounts to hide the movement of capital into Switzerland.

The charges relate to money kept in accounts in Switzerland between 2004 and 2012.

A probe was launched after former UBS employees blew the whistle.

UBS denies the charges.

The bank has said it believes it was a "highly politicized process that from the beginning of the investigation has not followed elementary facets of the rule of law".

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GERMANY

Germany cracks down on fake Covid vaccine documents

German police have set up a special team to fight a growing number of forged vaccine certificates being sold in the black market

Published: 5 June 2021 12:58 CEST
Germany cracks down on fake Covid vaccine documents
People who are fully vaccinated can show their vaccination booklet, which has a stamp and a sticker inside. Photo: Ina FASSBENDER / AFP

Police in Cologne have warned of a group of fraudsters selling fake vaccination certificates, a growing problem the scale of which is still unclear.

The police said the fraudsters worked in encrypted Telegram chats, making investigations difficult, and were selling fake documents with all the stamps and signatures, including a mark about vaccination with BioNTech or AstraZeneca.

READ ALSO: Germany probes Covid-19 testing centres for fraud

The fraud involved both real traffic in fake documents as well as scams luring customers into paying €100.

People in Germany who are fully vaccinated can show their vaccination booklet, which has a stamp and a sticker inside. Those who don’t have a booklet get a piece of paper.

Covid health passes are currently being rolled out across the EU, with a European health passport expected to be available from mid-June.

READ ALSO: What’s the latest on how the EU’s ‘Covid passports’ will work for travellers?

Over 44% of the adult population in Germany has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and more than 18% of Germans have been fully vaccinated.

German police have said forged coronavirus vaccine documents are becoming an increasing problem.

Last month, a couple in Baden-Württemberg was accused of selling fake coronavirus vaccination certificates.

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