20 Indians, including politicians, movie stars have Swiss accounts: Whistleblower

In the quiet village of Rorbas, just outside Zurich, Rudolf M. Elmer has been fighting a 12-year-long legal battle against the centuries-old traditions of Swiss banking secrecy. Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank, Julius Baer, for eight years before being dismissed in 2002, was part of the first wave of Swiss bank whistleblowers who helped expose the inner workings of a system that helped the world’s rich

In 2011, he was tried for sharing information about tax evasion, money laundering and other financial violations with US tax authorities and WikiLeaks. Over the past six years, Elmer has been imprisoned for 200 days, some of it in solitary confinement, and has fended off an orchestrated harassment campaign against his family.

however, may finally be looking up. In 2016, the high court of Zurich turned down demands by the prosecution to convict the 60 year old of breaching Swiss banking secrecy laws. If the Federal Supreme Court rules in his favour (a decision one way or the other is expected in the next three months), Elmer will release the Julius Baer account data he still holds.

This is data that he says contains the names of Indian politicians, film stars and cricketers. In an interview with The Wire, he explains how Swiss private banking has changed over the past 15 years,