Yemen Monitor/ Sana’a/ Exclusive:
The Swiss bank UBS has quietly reached a settlement in an investigation conducted by the Swiss Finance Ministry since three years ago regarding the bank’s historical relationship with the late Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen Monitor has obtained reports from Swiss media outlets that provide details about the investigations.
According to the Swiss News Agency (Keystone-SDA), the Finance Ministry said that the notification of the penalty was dated April 4, 2024, and became legally binding after a 30-day appeal period expired.
It is alleged that UBS managed millions of dollars for Saleh.
According to a foundation (SRF Investigativ), the investigation focuses on a large transaction in 2009, in which Sultan of Oman paid over $10 million (9 million Swiss francs) to Saleh in 2009. The check was delivered to UBS in Zurich by Saleh’s son (Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh).
Previously, the United Nations estimated Saleh’s wealth to be $60 billion in 2015, during three decades of his rule in Yemen, after he was killed by his Houthis allies in 2017.
This transaction raised internal concerns within the Swiss bank about money laundering, but instead of escalating the matter to the Swiss Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS), bank employees simply noted in an internal file that such gifts were common among wealthy Arab rulers. They wrote: “It is known that wealthy Arab rulers support their poorer colleagues with such gifts.”
According to SRF, Saleh’s family accounts were balanced in 2011, despite red signs, but UBS failed to notify authorities of money laundering reports. The bank also did not document the reasons for its failure.
The Finance Ministry said that the individuals (unnamed) responsible for such reports at UBS made a significant error. They stated that, assuming slight negligence, a fine of 50,000 Swiss francs was determined.
This is the maximum amount that can be imposed on a legal entity in administrative criminal proceedings by the Finance Ministry.
The ministry said that the proceedings against UBS began in 2021 and took two years to obtain relevant files from the bank.
In November 2014, the UN Security Council issued a resolution freezing Saleh’s assets and those of his son “for their role in invading Yemen’s capital city Sana’a” (which occurred in September 2014
