Wikileaks enjoined by US District Court in Cal.
MichaelP
against Wikileaks in U$ District Court for California, and a "permanent"
injunction was granted.
By this injunction Wikileak's ISP was required to block use of the
wikileaks.org URL, and wikileaks is now publishing through mirror pages at
wikileaks.cx and wikileaks.be
Michael
############
http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_heaven
CLOUDS ON THE CAYMAN TAX HEAVEN
From Wikileaks
Is David helvetic and Goliath a bear?
DANIEL SCHMITT
2008-02-15
This is the story of Rudolf Elmer of Switzerland, former Chief Operating
Officer of Bank Julius Baer on the Cayman Islands. The story of a man suspected
of leaking to the press information about the activities of a Swiss bank
specialized in hiding and laundering the money of the ultra rich through
anonymizing offshore trust structures. It also is the story of a man and his
family living with the consequences of being suspected of fouling the nest of a
traditional Swiss bank engaging in dubious activities. This story might differ
from previous one's related to this issue, mainly because while researching the
story, Rudolf Elmer has also been asked for his account of things.
Over the last few months Wikileaks has obtained and published various documents
related to allegedly illegal activities in the Cayman Islands performed by Bank
Julius Baer and started initial research into these. Regarding the same bank
Wikileaks had obtained legal documentation on the case of a Rudolf Elmer,
former debuty head of BJB cayman, in a Dec 2007 Zurich court case against Bank
Julius Baer. The law suit relates to various irregularities of
health-care/social-security payments by the bank, as well as the matter of
stalking (including at least one acknowledged car chase) Elmer and his family
by BJB-hired Private Investigators Zurich-based Ryffel AG,
Initial research easily turned up that 2002/2003 some sensitive documents had
slipped out of the Swiss banks office in the Cayman Islands, apparently
reaching US tax investigation units and eventually sent to the Swiss financial
magazine CASH, which reported on the disclosure, but possibly due to an
injunction or Swiss banking law, not the details. This event also triggered an
article in the Wall Street Journal an article in Swiss Weltwoche, titled "The
leak in paradise", giving background information on what happened back in 2003
on the Caymans.
When the leak of trust structures was discovered in 2003, Bank Julius Baer
initiated legal investigations on the Caymans, involving the search of the home
of each employee and when not gaining any insights from that, undertaking a
polygraph test on the employees. It still remained unclear where the data went.
The group of people having legitimate access to these documents was small,
Rudolf Elmer, who was BJB Caymans deputy head and Chief Operating Officer at
that point in time also fulfilled the position of Hurricane Officer, whos
duties included keeping backups. Elmer, facing a spinal surgery coming up in a
few days time, was on sick leave and had some trouble scheduling the test. He
thus became a suspect.
THE POLYGRAPH TEST
The transcript of the polygraph test conducted by a Lou Criscella and passed on
to Wikileaks is very abstract to read with names of clients being substituted
with single letters. While not all the context thus is properly understandable,
the transcript does not show any wrongdoing.
Reading the transcript one gets the impression that data has slipped out of the
Cayman Islands as early as 1997, and timelining the transcript with a couple of
later documents will also reveal that Elmer is accused of having leaked data
that was produced after the date that he left from the Caymans.
Elmer complained to the American Polygraph Association, the institution his
interrogator works for, the Cayman Prime Minister and other entities about the
conduct of the test.
Normally sick people would not be interviewed, but the APA's Ethics Commission,
stated in a letter that the ethical rules for polygraphing do not apply to the
Cayman Islands, and as the test had not been fully carried out, most of the APA
rules would not apply anyway. He was informed there are no regulations on the
Caymans for polygraph tests as in the United States.
Leaving home, returning to Switzerland
This is about when things started to get different for Rudolf Elmer.
It became essentially clear that he was a prime suspect and Bank Julius Baer
wanted to get rid of him. Personal suggestions by his manager to go out diving,
possibly as deep as possible, as well as anonymous phone calls to his family
suggesting they should leave the country for their own good, did not make the
whole situation much easier for the Elmers. As can be derived from the
transcript and personal communication with him, Rudolf Elmer felt very much
like being home on the Caymans, much in contrast to Switzerland, and the same
can be said for his family.
After the test Bank Julius Baer laid off him as an employee and the family
decided to move back to Switzerland. Bank Julius Baer, not being able to
substantially prove anything, but still investigating into him, had hired a
bunch of different Private Investigators like the Zurich-based Ryffel AG, to
track him. According to Elmer's assertions, he was threatened not to go to the
police verbally by officials of the bank, most of them composing the boards of
directors and similar entities within the various distributed BJB companies,
holdings, limiteds etc.
According to Elmer (most of the allegations appear in his Dec 2007 court
documents), he was subject to more or less permanent observation, as was his
family. His then 6-year old daughter got followed on her way to
school/kindergarden, his wife and daughter were even engaged in a chase on a
Swiss autobahn by the Ryffel AG, which had to be intercepted by the Police
(police confirmed). Cars driving in the dead-end street he lived in at night,
annoying his neighbours and putting further pressure on him. The phone calls,
that started in the Caymans followed to Switzerland. The situation again became
very uncomfortable, with Elmer's 8-year old daughter suffering trauma from the
bizarre lifestyle her family was forced into. Elmer also was offered CHF
500,000 by the bank, according to his statement in an effort to buy his
silence; he turned down the offer and asked the bank to be charged with
bribery, but the police found no law against bribing private persons.
Bank Julius Baer also started claims against Rudolf Elmer in Switzerland. These
could not be followed by prosecution as BJB refused to give out information on
its activity on the Cayman Islands that would provide a basis for investigation
and Elmer's defense. On that basis no prosecution in Switzerland could be
initiated. As BJB still had the PIs in the field at that point in time, putting
Elmer under pressure, maybe the tradeoff between releasing the material to the
prosecutor and facing eventual consequences, and silencing the suspected root
of all the trouble did not appear good enough at that point in time.
Elmer wrote a a letter to the newly appointed CEO of Bank Julius Baer in
Switzerland, Johannes de Gier, where he explained his position, trying to set
some facts straight. This document is the only document this author is aware of
linking Elmer to being (one of) the whisteblower(s), and it holds more
information on his actual responsibilities and awareness of activities on the
Caymans. While it has an uncompromising tone, it also sounds like a man talking
about his strong defenses in order to put an end to the harassment he is under.
Rudolf Elmer says this is about the time when he started to arrange protection
for himself and his family with what he knew. He sent a few hints out that
indicated he was in possession, lawfully, of this information, to make sure
nothing would happen to him or his family. The document was submitted to
Wikileaks in a bundle with the legal denial notice issued by the prosecutor in
Zurich.
The legal applications filed with the prosecutor in Zurich-Sihl, Switzerland
against Bank Julius Baer partly seem to be based on the letter sent to Johannes
de Gier to describe Elmer's situation. The denial notice from the prosecutor's
office indicate that Elmer also not been successful here. The prosecutor's
office of Zurich-Sihl ruled that stalking can not be substance of a criminal
prosecution in Switzerland, a land where no free person is restricted to move
the same way as another in public space. Acknowledging the car pursuit, the
prosecutor only mentions they were able to verify that a PI agency had been
engaged, but does not comment any further on this incident at all. The
prosecutor's office states that while there could be moral claims towards
someone ordering such an observation, the actions did not break criminal law.
Regarding the bribery claims that Elmer had made towards the bank, the
Prosecutor further ruled that bribery is not applicable to a private person but
only to a state entity, and stated non-understanding Elmer's motivation for
this claim, stating the whistleblower should be happy about the money and the
bank dropping its complaint.
Again, various other entities have been contacted by Rudolf Elmer, in his
desperate and continuous search for help, with no real success. He contacted
the Swiss Foundation of the International Social Service in respect to their
Rights for Children program, to find help for his daughters protection of the
harassment, yet no success. He was told these were if at all legal matters, and
as he already found out, there is no legal basis or protection against stalking
or observation by a private entity engaged by a private corporation. Not for
children or anyone at all in the free country of Switzerland.
Rarely does it get as clear as at this point: not only are financial
institutions in Switzerland very eager to avoid any attention by anyone, but
also are those banks being protected by certain legal institutions. As one of
the side effects of this story, the Swiss federal tax entity was very
interested in having access to what was obtained by the Zurich Prosecutor's
Office in relation to this case, yet have they also been denied access to those
files. So leaving the premises of Bank Julius Baer for a short moment one could
wonder if even after Jean Ziegler stood up as a hero and was actually able to
change parts of the Swiss banking system to something morally and judicially
more sound, the Swiss banking world is still as tightly knotted with parts of
the legal system as much that it appears bizarre to anyone of non-helvetic
origin. This also poses the important question in how much Switzerland with
this attitude will ever be able to harmonize with the EU on the issue of
banking transparency in order to stop illegal money flows.
While a lot of the extensive information and documentation is very hard to
interpret, if at all, this was the rough story of a Rudolf Elmer, fighting like
David against the bear Goliath. And this is also the story of one of the
biggest banks involved into offshoring business on the Caymans, dealing with an
issue related to the privacy of their businesses. A story of a bank that by its
actions right from the beginning to all action taken today, shows it has a lot
to hide from all parties eventually involved. A story of a bank that rather
uses scare tactics than talk about its business in a proper lawsuit. A story of
a bank that seems about willing to do anything to silence what Rudolf Elmer has
to say.
Documents related to this story can be found at:
* Bank Julius Baer
* Bank Julius Baer vs. Wikileaks
* Rudolf Elmer vs. Bank Julius Baer (german/english)
* Bank Julius Baer Polygraph test of Rudolf Elmer (english)
* Bank Julius Baer vs. Rudolf Elmer - no data theft (german/english)
Rudolf Elmer to this day claims he has not leaked any documentation related to
Bank Julius Baer in order to harm anyone, only setup an insurance for his and
his family's personal safety. Whether this assertion is true, technically true,
or untrue, or whether Mr. Elmer has been driven a bit batty by the pressure
should not distract us from the actions of Bank Julius Baer in its attempts to
silence its former high-level employee or the role it plays in supporting
ultra-rich's offshore tax avoidance, tax evasion, asset hiding and money
laundering..
Wikileaks would like to encourage everyone out there to have a look at the
information. We encourage anyone dealing with tax fraud and evasion and
offshore/Swiss banking to review the material posted with us. This will make
sure we can verify the relevance and validity of the material presented. Bank
Julius Baer has decided to go for the next round in trying to silence
Wikileaks. This will not happen and only proves that at least parts of the
material hold valid information. Retrieved from
"https://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_heaven"
See http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Wikileaks:Cover_Names for more.
http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wikileaks
http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/images/Dynadot-injunction.pdf
http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Die_Akten_des_Hurricane_Man
http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_heaven
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