BASEL: A former Swiss banker has agreed to voluntarily face U.S. charges that he conspired to help Americans hide millions of dollars in offshore accounts to evade U.S. taxes, his lawyer said on Monday.
Stefan Buck, who was head of private banking at the now-shuttered Zurich-based Bank Frey & Co, pleaded not guilty at a hearing last Wednesday in Manhattan federal court and was released on a $100,000 bond, said Marc Agnifilo, his lawyer.
Buck, 36, had been living in Switzerland since his indictment in 2013 in what was one of a number of cases spilling out of a broad crackdown by the United States on offshore tax evasion by Americans.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who had previously called Buck a fugitive, confirmed in a letter filed in court on Monday that he was arraigned on Wednesday. Agnifilo said Buck “came back voluntarily to defend the case.”
Buck was charged in April 2013 along with Edgar Paltzer, a former partner of Swiss law firm Niederer Kraft & Frey, who later that August pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
The indictment accused them of conspiring with U.S. taxpayers to help them hide their Swiss accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.
Bank Frey & Co, which had assets under management of 1.9 billion Swiss francs ($997 million) at the end of 2012, announced in October 2013 it would close due to the U.S. investigation.
