Word: switzerland
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...passport identified him as an Argentine citizen named Bruno Rizzi. He turned up one day last week at a Geneva branch of the prestigious Bank of Switzerland to withdraw money - as much as $60 million, according to some reports - from numbered accounts. But Swiss police swiftly arrested him. His real identity: Licio Gelli, 63, an Italian businessman sought for 16 months for his part in two of the biggest scandals to rock Italy in years...
...summer. The city of Monte Carlo was just gearing up for another prosperous summer of tourism and gambling. When my friend and I stepped off the train in Monaco (30 minutes away from our hotel in Nice, France) I was immediately reminded of what Ernest Hemingway once wrote of Switzerland: "A small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways." Closely packed high-rise apartment buildings and hotels dot the sunbaked hills of Monte Carlo, creating an atmosphere that is a dazzling and claustrophobic. We labored up a hill and, reaching its summit, gazed out over the city...
...that I was a poor prisoner between heaven and earth, that all men were miserably imprisoned in this way . . ." Hindsight lends this perception, recorded in 1917, some added poignancy. Walser died on Christmas Day in 1956 while taking a walk on the grounds of his sanatorium in eastern Switzerland...
Thomas had good reason for elation. After six months of negotiation, the U.S. and Swiss governments last week jointly announced an agreement that will make it harder for criminals to hide behind Switzerland's strict banking-secrecy laws. The accord marks the first time that Swiss authorities have agreed to cooperate in tracking down those who break U.S. laws against trading securities with insider information. Said Thomas: "Insider trading has been proliferating at an alarming rate. But the agreement we have made with the Swiss should prove to be a significant deterrent...
...would allow the banks to reveal their names if they are suspected of insider trading. Without that waiver, Swiss financiers, under the country's bank-secrecy law, would face up to six months' imprisonment or a fine of up to 50,000 Swiss francs (about $23,600). Switzerland's famed banking-secrecy laws date back to 1934, when they were passed in order to protect Jewish account holders from Nazi persecution...