US prosecutors yesterday indicted two former Julius Baer private bankers on charges of selling tax evasion services to US citizens, as the US Justice Department continues its assault on offshore tax jurisdictions, reports said.

The indictment of the two bankers, Daniela Casadei and Fabio Frazzetto, did not name their employer and referred only to "Swiss Bank #1." However, that bank is Julius Baer, Reuters reported, citing an unnamed source.

The two bankers and an unspecified number of unnamed colleagues helped about 180 US clients of Julius Baer hide about $600 million in assets in Swiss bank accounts that went undeclared to the US Internal Revenue Service, according to the indictment.

Casadei and Frazzetto were accused of conspiracy to defraud the US.

“The bank is one of a number of Swiss financial institutions supporting the ongoing negotiations between the US and Switzerland and is cooperating with the US government investigation. The bank cannot comment on the indictments,” a spokesperson for Julius Baer told WealthBriefing today.

The indictments come at a time when the US legal authorities and tax collection agencies are intensifying pressure on Switzerland’s banking industry. In the past few years, Julius Baer, along with UBS, Wegelin, and others Swiss banks, has stopped providing offshore banking to US clients. In 2009, Switzerland’s legendary bank secrecy rules were partly breached when the US and Swiss governments agreed that UBS should transfer client account details to the US authorities as part of a civil legal case against the bank.

Last week, the lobby group, the Tax Justice Network, issued its “financial secrecy index” ranking Switzerland as the world’s most secret financial jurisdiction, although ironically, the US came in fifth place. Critics in the Cayman Islands and Jersey have questioned the TJN’s methodology in its findings.

Reuters reported that Credit Suisse has, meanwhile, received a “target letter”, described as a step towards possible indictment by the US, in July, and about a dozen other banks are under criminal scrutiny.

The latest indictment is by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

It accused Casadei and Frazzetto of helping US clients open Swiss accounts in code names, encouraging them to put assets in the names of foreign relatives, setting up sham corporate entities to hide their clients' ownership of the assets, and reassuring clients that they would not be found out because the bank no longer had an office in New York.

In 2005, Swiss bank giant UBS bought a 21.5 per cent stake in Julius Baer in a transaction in which Baer simultaneously bought more than $3 billion in private banking assets from UBS. UBS later sold the stake.