Word: birkenfeld
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...assertions made in a new legal filing suggest that this impasse could have been avoided if U.S. investigators had taken up an offer by the UBS whistleblower, Bradley Birkenfeld, to help roll up the entire secretive UBS operation, by providing the cell phone numbers of fellow bankers and even offering to wear a wire to gather incriminating evidence in Switzerland...
...That is the assertion of lawyers representing Birkenfeld, in a complaint filed in late January to an ethics unit of the Department of Justice known as the Office of Professional Responsibility. According to Birkenfeld's attorneys, the Department of Justice "willfully/negligently failed to conduct an investigation that would have permitted the U.S. government to obtain the identities of U.S. clients who maintained illegal offshore accounts with UBS." (See the top 10 bankruptcies...
...Birkenfeld's offer went nowhere, according to a complaint filed by Stephen Kohn and Dean Zorbe, two experienced whistleblower lawyers who now represent Birkenfeld in a civil case to win a reward under an IRS whistleblower program begun in 2006. "That's Hollywood; you watch too many movies," he was allegedly told...
...Former U.S. prosecutors say there could be many reasons for prosecutors to have passed on Birkenfeld's offer. Wearing a wire in Switzerland, for instance, would legally have required the U.S. to get permission of the Swiss authorities - an unlikely prospect - although one experienced former U.S. attorney who asked to remain anonymous noted that he and others he knew had done that in other countries without seeking permission...
...These guys are not cowboys," says a former U.S. prosecutor who worked most of his career in state field offices, where prosecutors are known to typically be more aggressive than those working at the Justice's main D.C. office. "Birkenfeld would have been better off walking in to a U.S. Attorney General field office or even a local IRS office...