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Credit Suisse is limiting probe into Nazi bank accounts, US lawmakers say
(JTA) — The U.S. Senate Budget Committee has accused Credit Suisse of impeding an investigation into former accounts at the bank held by Nazis, including many who fled to South American countries after World War II.
On Tuesday, the committee released two reports, one by an independent ombudsman the bank had hired to oversee the investigation and one by a forensic research team. The bank fired the ombudsman, American lawyer Neil Barofsky, in November, months into his investigation.
“Credit Suisse’s decision to stop its review midstream has left many questions unanswered, including questions about the thoroughness of its prior investigative efforts, the extent to which it served Nazi interests and the bank’s role in servicing Nazis fleeing justice after the war,” Barofsky wrote in his findings, according to reports.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Senate committee’s ranking Republican, added in a statement on Tuesday: “When it comes to investigating Nazi matters, righteous justice demands that we must leave no stone unturned. Credit Suisse has thus far failed to meet that standard.”
Jewish organizations have long claimed that in addition to playing a key role in financially supporting Nazi Germany, Credit Suisse has held onto money looted from Jews long after the war. In 1999, the Swiss bank paid Jewish groups and Holocaust survivors a settlement of $1.25 billion in restitution for withholding money from Jews who tried to withdraw their funds.
In 2020, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an antisemitism watchdog named after a famed Nazi hunter, reported that an Argentine investigator had found evidence that thousands of Nazis who fled to Argentina had kept accounts at Credit Suisse for decades, some with looted funds. The bank then opened an internal investigation.
Earlier this year, Grassley said that he had “received credible allegations of potential wrongdoing related to Credit Suisse’s internal investigation, including specifically the questionable removal of Mr. Barofsky in late 2022.”
“[T]he information we’ve obtained shows the bank established an unnecessarily rigid and narrow scope, and refused to follow new leads uncovered during the course of the review,” Grassley said in a statement.
According to the Associated Press, the forensic firm AlixPartners’ report showed that 21 Credit Suisse accounts had connections to Nazis, including multiple SS officers, on the Wiesenthal Center 2020 list. The New York Times reported that Barofsky, who was hired by the bank in February, had not found any accounts definitively linked to Nazis that were still open at the time of his firing, but he wrote that he was in November still looking into accounts not included in the 1990s report that he believed could have held Nazi money.
The bank said in a statement that the new reports confirm “existing research on Credit Suisse’s history published in the context of the 1999 Global Settlement that provided binding closure for the Swiss banks regarding all issues relating to World War II.”
The probe will continue in some form, as the Senate committee noted that the bank “committed to further investigate its apparent role in supporting Nazis fleeing from justice after WWII.”
Thousands of Nazis fled Europe to havens in Latin America after the war, most notably to countries such as Argentina and Brazil but also to others such as Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru.
Switzerland had long claimed full neutrality during World War II, but the 1990s investigations into banks and other wartime financial dealings with Nazi Germany shattered that reputation. The country’s financial system, it was revealed, had laundered gold and other stolen goods through the war and resisted pushes in its immediate aftermath to pay restitution to Jewish victims of the Nazis.
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The post Credit Suisse is limiting probe into Nazi bank accounts, US lawmakers say appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.
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Lebanon Close to Completing Disarmament of Hezbollah South of Litani River, Says PM
FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to journalists at the government headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, December 3, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
Lebanon is close to completing the disarmament of Hezbollah south of the Litani River, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Saturday, as the country races to fulfil a key demand of its ceasefire with Israel before a year-end deadline.
The US-backed ceasefire, agreed in November 2024, ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and required the disarmament of the Iran-aligned terrorirst group, starting in areas south of the river adjacent to Israel.
Lebanese authorities, led by President Joseph Aoun and Salam, tasked the US-backed Lebanese army on August 5 with devising a plan to establish a state monopoly on arms by the end of the year.
“Prime Minister Salam affirmed that the first phase of the weapons consolidation plan related to the area south of the Litani River is only days away from completion,” a statement from his office said.
“The state is ready to move on to the second phase – namely (confiscating weapons) north of the Litani River – based on the plan prepared by the Lebanese army pursuant to a mandate from the government,” Salam added.
The statement came after Salam held talks with Simon Karam, Lebanon’s top civilian negotiator on a committee overseeing the Hezbollah-Israel truce.
Since the ceasefire, the sides have regularly accused each other of violations, with Israel questioning the Lebanese army’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah. Israeli warplanes have increasingly targeted Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and even in the capital.
Hezbollah, a Shi’ite Muslim group, has tried to resist the pressure – from its mainly Christian and Sunni Muslim opponents in Lebanon as well as from the US and Saudi Arabia – to disarm, saying it would be a mistake while Israel continues its air strikes on the country.
Israel has publicly urged Lebanese authorities to fulfil the conditions of the truce, saying it will act “as necessary” if Lebanon fails to take steps against Hezbollah.