It revealed that autocrats, oligarchs, war criminals, human traffickers and drug dealers had accounts with Credit Suisse, a failure of the bank to apply due diligence.
The data were evaluated by 48 media companies from all over the world, among them the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, The Guardian, The New York Times and Le Monde.
[5] The data were leaked anonymously by a person or group, who wrote in an accompanying statement, that they felt Swiss banking secrecy laws were "immoral", that "Swiss banks ..[were] collaborators of tax evaders", because "a significant number of these accounts were opened with the sole purpose of hiding their holder's wealth from fiscal institutions and/or avoiding the payment of taxes on capital gains".
[3] As a result of the leak, numerous people allegedly involved in crimes ranging from corruption and bribery to drug and human trafficking became known as Credit Suisse clients.
[6] A documentary also mentioned Hugo Chavez's bodyguard Carlos Luis Aguilera Borjas, who later became head of the secret police as having 8 million CHF in a Credit Suisse account.
[42] On 2 March 2022, it became known that Credit Suisse had asked its investors to destroy documents linked to the securisation of yacht loans of oligarchs.