Credit Suisse Drug Money Conviction Unravels After UBS Appeals

The Swiss Federal Criminal Court acquitted UBS on March 3, 2026, in the Credit Suisse Bulgarian cocaine-money case. The 2022 guilty verdict against the bank is gone, and so is the bill that came with it.

Judges in Bellinzona discontinued the case against a former Credit Suisse relationship manager who died in 2023, acquitted UBS and dropped the compensatory claim that first-instance judges had set at more than 19 million francs. Two men remain convicted on reduced, mostly suspended terms. The ruling is not final.

A First for Swiss Banking Lasted Until the Banker Died

On June 27, 2022, the Criminal Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court did something Swiss banks had never faced. It convicted Credit Suisse of corporate crime for failing to stop aggravated money laundering tied to a Bulgarian cocaine network.

The file was SK.2020.62, brought by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland. The conduct sat in the mid-2000s, when the country’s second-largest bank was still chasing rich clients from Eastern Europe and the Suisse Secrets files on Credit Suisse clients had not yet landed.

That first-instance judgment was treated as a test of whether a major Swiss lender could be convicted as a company. Four years of appeals, a death, a forced merger, and a Supreme Court remand later, the company is no longer guilty. The people around the accounts did not all get the same result.

What the Bellinzona Court Found in 2022

The Criminal Chamber held that a former Credit Suisse employee, anonymised as A. in later rulings, had run the gang’s bank relationship. Between July 2007 and December 2008 she carried out, or had others carry out, transfer orders, mostly abroad, despite what the court called concrete signs that the money was criminal.

By those transfers, the court said, she helped the organisation pull more than 19 million francs beyond the reach of the state. She received a 20-month prison term and a money penalty, both suspended.

The court found failings inside the bank in the handling of the criminal organisation’s accounts and in the watch kept by management, the legal service, and compliance on anti-money-laundering rules. Those failings made it possible to pull out the organisation’s assets, which was the basis for convicting the former employee of aggravated money laundering.

Federal Criminal Court, first-instance judgment SK.2020.62, June 27, 2022

On that finding the court convicted Credit Suisse under article 102 paragraph 2 of the Swiss Criminal Code, the rule that lets a company be punished when poor organisation allows a crime in its business. The fine was 2 million francs (about $2.1 million). Judges also ordered a compensatory claim of more than 19 million francs, matching funds they said could not be seized because of those internal failings, and the confiscation of more than 12 million francs held in the organisation’s Credit Suisse accounts.

WHAT THE 2022 COURT SAID WENT WRONG

• Client handling: The bank’s management of the gang’s accounts was judged inadequate across the 2007-2008 window.
• Line management: Supervisors did not keep a proper watch on whether anti-money-laundering rules were actually applied.
• Legal and compliance: The legal service and the compliance unit were named, with management, as part of that failed watch.
• The result: Those gaps let the organisation move assets out, which then supported the employee’s money-laundering conviction and the bank’s.

Credit Suisse said it would appeal the verdict, stressing that the allegations were more than 14 years old. It also said it “is continuously testing its anti-money laundering framework and has been strengthening it over time, in accordance with evolving regulatory standards.”

Suitcases of Cash and Two Murders on the File

The clients sat in the circle of Evelin Banev, a former Bulgarian wrestler who was not charged in the Swiss case. He was later convicted in Italy in 2017 for drug trafficking and in Bulgaria in 2018 for money laundering. Prosecutors described a network that moved cocaine into Europe by air and sea, then pushed small-denomination notes into Swiss accounts and into property in Bulgaria and Switzerland.

At trial in February 2022, prosecutors told the court the relationship manager had handled more than 146 million francs in transactions, including 43 million francs in cash, some of it packed in suitcases. One client who had been placing cash in a Credit Suisse safe-deposit box was shot dead outside a Sofia restaurant in 2005. The banker, who left Credit Suisse in 2010, testified that the bank knew the money was tied to cocaine smuggling and to killings linked to the gang, and that the accounts still ran as normal.

Credit Suisse disputed that the funds were illegal and pointed to construction, leasing, and hotel businesses around Banev. The Criminal Chamber still found deficiencies in monitoring and compliance and tied them to the employee’s conviction.

Two other people were convicted with her and the bank. C., a Bulgarian national, was found guilty of taking part in a criminal organisation and of aggravated money laundering. He received 36 months, half of it to be served, plus a suspended money penalty. The court described him as a trusted man of the organisation who built financial structures, stood between two Swiss banks and members of the group, then helped move funds out of Switzerland. E., a former staff member of another Swiss bank, was convicted of supporting a criminal organisation and of aggravated money laundering.

The Employee’s Death Untied the Bank’s Conviction

A. died in April 2023, after the first-instance judgment and before the reasoned written ruling reached the parties in October 2023. Under Swiss privacy rules she was not named in court papers. Her heirs took up the appeal with C., E., and Credit Suisse. The Attorney General’s Office filed a joined appeal.

Article 102 is built around a crime committed inside a firm. In this file the company’s alleged offence was chained to aggravated money laundering by the employee. Once she was dead, the appeals judges said they could not test the bank’s alleged breach without trampling her presumption of innocence. On November 26, 2024, in case CA.2023.20, they acquitted the bank on that ground and cancelled the compensatory claim.

By then Credit Suisse no longer existed as a going concern. Swiss authorities had pushed it into UBS in March 2023 after a run on the bank. The legal merger closed at the end of May 2024. In August 2024 the appeals court ruled that the Credit Suisse prosecution would continue against UBS. UBS took that point to the Federal Supreme Court and lost on procedure: on March 18, 2025, that appeal was declared inadmissible.

C.’s guilt was confirmed for acts from June 2005 to January 2009, but his term was cut to 29 months, partly suspended, because of the time that had passed and a breach of the right to a speedy process. He had already spent 316 days in pretrial detention, from June 30, 2011, to May 10, 2012. E.’s money-laundering counts were dropped as time-barred. Judges said the file did not prove he knew of the criminal organisation before August 31, 2007, so he was acquitted for July 20 to August 30, 2007, and convicted for August 31, 2007, through November 2008, to five months fully suspended.

The Second Acquittal After a Supreme Court Remand

The 2024 acquittal did not end the file. On January 6, 2025, the Federal Supreme Court struck down the appeals court’s earlier decision to peel A.’s case off and send it back for discontinuation. The heirs’ appeal, the court said, had to be heard with the co-defendants. On July 7, 2025, in judgment 6B_227/2025, the Supreme Court then quashed CA.2023.20 itself and sent the whole matter back for a new decision.

FROM GUILTY TO CLEARED

1. June 27, 2022: The Criminal Chamber convicts Credit Suisse, A., C., and E. in SK.2020.62 and sets a 2 million franc fine plus a claim of more than 19 million francs.
2. April 2023: A. dies. Credit Suisse is already inside the UBS rescue that began in March 2023.
3. End of May 2024: Credit Suisse and UBS complete their legal merger. The appeals court later holds that the prosecution continues against UBS.
4. November 26, 2024: The appeals chamber acquits the bank because A. is dead, and it cuts C.’s and E.’s sentences.
5. July 7, 2025: The Federal Supreme Court quashes that appeals judgment and remands the case.
6. March 3, 2026: After extra hearings in February 2026 with A.’s heirs in the room, the appeals chamber discontinues the case against A., acquits UBS, and cancels the compensatory claim again.

The second appeals judgment, CA.2025.17, is the live one. It does not restore the 2022 corporate conviction. It also does not give UBS the discontinuation it said it wanted on merger grounds. It is an acquittal, entered after the Supreme Court forced the dead employee’s appeal back into the same room as the bank’s.

Who Still Has a Record From the Bulgaria File

The corporate test case is the part that collapsed. The individual file did not. C. is still guilty of taking part in a criminal organisation and of aggravated money laundering from June 2005 to January 2009. E. is still guilty of supporting that organisation from August 31, 2007, to November 2008. Their terms kept shrinking as the clock ran.

THE BULGARIA FILE, VERDICT BY VERDICT

C.’s 2026 term is still partly suspended. E.’s is fully suspended. Neither result is a clean wipe. The bank’s 2 million franc fine falls with the acquittal, as does the claim of more than 19 million francs. The 2022 confiscation order against more than 12 million francs in the organisation’s accounts was a seizure of gang assets, not a payment by the bank, and the March 2026 release does not say that order was revived or cancelled.

UBS Argues a Merger Cannot Carry a Crime

UBS welcomed the March 2026 judgment and still said the prosecution against it should have been dropped. In its telling, criminal liability of a company does not pass, after a merger, to the legal successor. The appeals court did not adopt that off-ramp. It acquitted UBS on the charge and left the successor-liability question as a live complaint rather than as the basis of the result.

That complaint is why the file still matters to anyone who watches bank prosecutions. The 2022 conviction was supposed to show that a major Swiss bank could be found guilty as a firm when its anti-money-laundering system failed. The appeals path showed something narrower: if the natural person at the centre of the charge dies, and if the firm is then absorbed, the corporate case can stall even when two other defendants stay guilty.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The bank: UBS stands acquitted of the article 102 charge tied to aggravated money laundering in this file.
• The money orders: The 2 million franc fine and the compensatory claim of more than 19 million francs are cancelled in the March 2026 judgment.
• The people: C. and E. remain convicted, on terms of 26 months partly suspended and 4 months 15 days fully suspended.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A further appeal: The appeals court said the March 3, 2026, judgment is not final. After the full written reasons, the parties may take a criminal-law appeal to the Federal Supreme Court. No later Supreme Court ruling on CA.2025.17 is on the public docket described here.
• Successor liability: UBS still contends a merged bank cannot inherit a predecessor’s crime. The appeals court did not decide the case on that ground.

Swiss finance accounts treated the March 2026 result as a one-line ticker, the same way they treated the 2024 acquittal. There was no public fight over the suitcase cash or over Banev’s network. The argument that remains sits in the law: whether article 102 can still bite when the employee is dead and the convicted bank has been folded into another name.

Until the Federal Supreme Court says otherwise, or until the time to ask it runs out, Switzerland’s first criminal conviction of a major domestic bank for this cocaine-money file does not stand. The two men sentenced beside Credit Suisse in 2022 still do.