Leniency for ex-banker who helped the rich hide cash

MIAMI?? A former senior UBS private banker who helped the U.S. government expand its crackdown on offshore tax evasion was sentenced to five years' probation Friday for advising wealthy Americans on ways to hide their money from U.S. tax authorities.

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Renzo Gadola, who worked at giant Swiss bank UBS AG from 1995 to 2008, pleaded guilty in December.

He was arrested in Miami after officials secretly taped him meeting a client at a luxury hotel.

Federal prosecutors had sought a lenient sentence for Gadola because of his assistance in uncovering other tax evasion cases.

They asked for less than the 10-month minimum prison sentence recommended in sentencing guidelines.

The prosecutors said Gadola helped build cases against former colleagues and bank customers who had secret Swiss accounts.

IRS campaign
The case is part of a broad Internal Revenue Service campaign to identify wealthy tax dodgers.

UBS in 2009 agreed to disclose the identities of thousands of U.S. clients and paid a $780 million fine for tax evasion.

In July, Reuters reported Swiss financial adviser Beda Singenberger , owner of Zurich-based Sinco Treuhand, had been charged with helping more than 60 U.S. taxpayers hide more than $184 million in Swiss bank accounts.

Singenberger also allegedly helped move assets from UBS AG to other Swiss banks to avoid getting caught.

Singenberger was indicted on a charge of conspiring to hide clients' income from the Internal Revenue Service from 1998 to 2009, the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said at the time.

The indictment came nearly 2 1/2 years after UBS avoided U.S. criminal prosecution by agreeing to pay a $780 million penalty and admitting it helped Americans hide income from the IRS. Criminal charges were formally dropped last October.

If convicted, Singenberger, 57, could face five years in prison plus a fine.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45355352/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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