AFP-Ex-UBS whistleblower may leave jail rich man

Bradley Birkenfeld turned in 19,000 people for trying to evade paying taxes in US. -AFP

WASHINGTON – An ex-employee of Swiss banking giant UBS may leave prison a rich man thanks after he blew the whistle on a huge US tax fraud, CBS television said Sunday.

Bradley Birkenfeld turned in thousands of people for trying to evade paying taxes in the United States. But he was sentenced in August to three years and four months in jail for inciting UBS clients to commit tax fraud.

Birkenfeld told CBS Sunday he felt he had been badly treated after he denounced 19,000 UBS clients who were said to have invested some 20 billion Swiss francs (S$27.2 billion) in secret Swiss accounts.

“I’m the only one going to prison. Out of 19,000 accounts and no Swiss bankers,” he said.

“I gave them the biggest tax fraud case in the world. I exposed 19,000 international criminals. And I’m going to jail for that?”

But one of his lawyers, Stephen Kohn, told the US television channel that Birkenfeld could have the last laugh, as under federal laws he may be entitled to up to 30 per cent of any taxes recovered by the US tax service.

According to prosecutors, the Internal Revenue Service could recoup several billion dollars in lost taxes.

Birkenfeld, from Massachusetts, was sentenced just two days after UBS and the US and Swiss governments reached a landmark out-of-court settlement of the US civil tax fraud complaint.

Despite strict Swiss secrecy laws, UBS agreed to hand over some 4,500 names to US authorities suspected of tax evasion.

Birkenfeld was however sentenced for aiding the Californian property developer Igor Olinicoff to hide some US$200 million (S$281 million) of shares in Switzerland and Lichtenstein. His lawyer, Kohn, said the US authorities should however be thanking him.

“Mr Birkenfeld has saved the taxpayers billions of dollars, brought thousands of people to justice. They should blow up his check,” Kohn told CBS.

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