By Stephanie Nebehay

BELLINZONA, Switzerland (Reuters) – A former Credit Suisse (SIX) A bank employee stated that she informed the bank management of any outflows to accounts belonging to Bulgarian customers. This was after Sofia authorities sought assistance from Switzerland.

Credit Suisse, the bank’s first major shareholder, and the ex-employe are facing charges for allowing a gang of suspected Bulgarian drug traffickers to launder millions. Some of the cocaine was stuffed in suitcases.

Under Swiss privacy laws the name of the ex-employee cannot be revealed. However, he denies any wrongdoing. Credit Suisse rejected the allegations and stated that its ex-employe is innocent and plans to defend itself vigorously.

Swiss prosecutors claim Credit Suisse and the ex-relationship manager didn’t do enough to protect the accused drug traffickers, even though there are indications the money could have been criminally sourced.

This indictment covers more than 500 pages and focuses on the relationships Credit Suisse (the second largest bank in Switzerland) and its former employee had with Evelin Banev, a former Bulgarian wrestler, as well as several other associates.

“I was informing because I was so stressed about the situation that I was afraid to make a mistake. I’m not an experienced person, so I wasn’t competent. “So that I was going to continue reporting, reporting maybe even more than necessary,” the ex-employee told Bellinzona’s Federal Criminal Court on Thursday. She spoke in English.

“IKEPT INFORMING”

The prosecution alleges that the defendant left Credit Suisse in 2010 and helped launder money through more than 146,000,000 transactions in Swiss Francs.

At the trial, documents showed that she informed an authorized Credit Suisse lawyer about transactions. This was after the Swiss attorney General in June 2007 informed them of the investigation into Bulgarian accounts with illicit money derived from drug dealing.

“There was a procedure,” she stated, and added that any money flowing to her bank had to be reported to the bank’s legal department.

I repeat. “I kept the line managers informed at every step. They were kept up to date with everything.”

She said that she was unable to approve transfers of more than 200,000 Swiss francs from the Bulgarians’ accounts. Never. It is impossible to do so, even if you wanted.”

After being questioned by the prosecution, she was visibly angry and called the allegations against her “scandal”.

Before asking for a brief break, she stated, “All of this, this morning have been before them for 13 year of my life.”

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Banev doesn’t face any charges in Switzerland. However, he was convicted of drug trafficking in Italy and money laundering in Bulgaria. The Swiss case charges Banev and two associates.

Banev was taken into custody in September, Ukraine by countries like Bulgaria and Romania.

According to his lawyer, Banev in Sofia denied that he was involved with the money laundering by Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse refutes the illegal source of the funds, a source who is familiar with the company’s thinking tells Reuters. The source said that the alleged traffickers were legitimate businessmen operating in the construction, leasing, and hotel industries and that extensive checks had been conducted.

According to the presiding judge, a sentence of 15 years for aggravated laundering money means that only those events which occurred after February 7, 2007, can be included in this case.

Before the 2008 U.S. crackdown, Switzerland maintained a strong culture of bank secrecy.

Since the new rules were introduced, Swiss private banks had to adapt their business models to ensure that offshore accounts can be identified by authorities in any country where they are held.

The former employee stated that, despite the existence of rules against money laundering, wealth clients brought in cash into Switzerland without declaring it to authorities. Credit Suisse also shared this opinion, according to someone familiar with the matter.

(Reporting, writing and editing done by Stephanie Nebehay of Bellinzona. Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi from Zurich. Tsvetelia Tsolova is in Sofia.