Credit Suisse Freezes $5 billion of Russian Money due to U.S. Sanctions – A Recipe for Accelerated De-Linking from the Dollar Economy
by Peter Koenig for The Saker blog
A few days ago, Reuter reported that Switzerland’s second largest bank, Crédit Suisse, has ‘frozen’ about 5 billion Swiss francs, or about the same in US-dollars, for fear of falling out of favors with Washington – and being ‘sanctioned’ in one way or another. Crédit Suisse, like her bigger sister, UBS, have been amply punished already by Washington for facilitating in the US as well as in Switzerland tax evasion for US oligarchs. They want to be good boys now with Washington.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-credit-suisse-gp-sanctions/credit-suisse-freezes-5-billion-of-russian-money-due-to-u-s-sanctions-idUSKCN1L71LR
Switzerland’s banking watchdog, FINMA, does not require Swiss banks to enforce foreign sanctions, but has said they have a responsibility to minimize legal and reputational risks. Crédit Suisse is cautious. In 2009, it reached a $500 million settlement with U.S. authorities over dealings with sanctions-hit Iran. And most every major bank remembers the 2014 settlement of France’s BNP Paribas for a record $8.9 billion fine for violating U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Cuba and Iran.
When asked, two other Swiss banks, UBS and Julius Baer, who are known to deal with Russian clients, declined a straight forward answer whether they too will resort to sanctioning their Russian customers. An UBS spokesman said evasively, they were “implementing worldwide at least the sanctions currently imposed by Switzerland, the U.N., the EU and the U.S.”
What doesn’t stop amazing me, is how the western world just accepts such horrendous US fraud, or better called, outright theft of other countries resources, be it monetary or natural resources. And all that is possible only because the entire western world and all those African and lately again, Latin American countries – many of them developing countries, including some of the major oil producers – are still tied to the US dollar. All international money transactions, regardless whether they concern the United States, or simply two completely independent countries, have to transit through a US bank either in London or New York. This is what makes it possible for the US to implement financial and economic sanctions in the first place.
A few days ago, the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, dared proposing that the EU detach itself from the international, totally privately run, Belgium registered SWIFT transfer system, as it is fully controlled by the US banking oligarchy, is operating in more than 200 countries and territories. He suggested that the EU create an independent transfer system, much like Russia and China have done, to free themselves from the financial slavehood to Washington. The reaction of one of his rightwing German countryman and parliamentarian was swift – it was not the right time to even think of de-coupling the EU from Washington, now where Russia is in dire straits and Germany and the rest of Europe needs the US more than ever. – Can you imagine!
In this pathetic, gutless Europe, it is highly questionable whether Mr. Mass’s excellent idea will survive and actually gain support. Hardly at this stage.
Irrespective of the spineless behavior of the EU and the Swiss Government, the latter unable even to stand up to its own neutrality – let them rot in their submissiveness to empire and its EU vassals – gutlessness, which by the way they, the Swiss Government, has also demonstrated vis-à-vis Venezuela – more important, much more important is, what does this all mean for Russia?
To begin with, the Crédit Suisse ‘frozen’ 5 billion dollars, you may as well call it what it is in reality: Totally illegally “confiscated” Russian assets. It is rare, if ever, that the US government returns so called ‘frozen’ assets of any sanctioned country. And under the current scenario, Trump and his masters and the pressure of the corrupt Hillary swamp, will not let go of demonizing and ‘sanctioning’ Russia, regardless of the real impact of these sanctions, and regardless of the total lawlessness of these actions, regardless of the manufactured and lie-based reason for these sanctions, regardless of the fact that everybody with a half-brain knows about the manipulated and false pretexts for sanctions, and regardless of another fact, namely that these actions are contributing to an ever accelerating suicide of the empire and its corrupt system that eventually will drown in its own Washington swamp. – Good riddens! The sooner the better.
And the impact of these sanctions is hardly what they pretend to be. They are foremost a call on the Atlantists – or call them Fifth Columnists, of which there are still too many embedded in the Russian financial sector – to counteract the internal measures Russia is taking to escape the dollar slavehood. They will not succeed. The vessel is turning and turning ever faster; turning from west to east.
Despite the constant demonization of the ruble, how it lost 50% of its value because of the sanctions, the Russian currency is worth way more than all the western fiat currencies together. The western dollar-dependent moneys are based on hot air, or not even – on zilch, nada, zero; they are literally produced by private banks like casino money. The ruble is doubly-backed by gold and by Russia’s well-recovered economy – and so is the Chinese Yuan.
So, what does a 50% loss of the ruble mean? – Loss against what? Loss against the US dollar and the currencies of Washington’s vassal allies? – With a delinked Russian economy from the western economy, the western concept of ‘devaluation’ is totally meaningless. The ruble doesn’t need to compare itself anymore to the western dollar-enslaved currencies.
So, the urgent call by the nature of things for Russia to delink from the western economy, from the western fraudulent dollar-based monetary system, is being heeded by Russia. – I cannot but repeat and repeat again that the dollar economy and the enslaving monetary system it produced, is an absolute fraud. It is a crime that would be punishable by any international court that deserves the name of a court of law, that is not bought and whose judges are not threatened if they don’t fold to the dictate of Washington. But upholding the laws of ethics and moral – the laws that our more honest and humble forefathers not too long ago crafted, is a thing of the past. The corruption in everything accompanied by intimidations and coercions, have been accepted by just about everybody as the new normal. This in itself is not normal. It creates a pressure cooker that eventually will simply explode.
To move away from this ever-increasing stench of cultural decay – a de-dollarization is a must, is a recipe for survival. And survive, Russia will. Russia is buying massively gold, shedding US treasury bonds from its reserves, replacing them with gold and Chinese Yuan, an IMF-accepted official reserve currency. In July 2018 Russia purchased a record 26 tons of gold, leading up to gold reserves of close to a total of 2000 tons, quadrupling her gold inventory since 2008. This makes Russia the world’s fifth largest gold holder.
As Mr. Putin said already a few years ago, the sanctions are the best thing that happened to Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It forced us to rehabilitate and boost our agricultural production for food self-sufficiency and to rebuild and modernize our industrial park. Today Russia has a cutting-edge industrial arsenal and is no longer dependent on “sanctioned” imports. Russia is not only food-autonomous but has become the world’s largest wheat exporter. And take this – according to Mr. Putin, Russia will supply the world with only organic food, no GMOs, no toxic fertilizers and pesticides.
Russia has clearly and unstoppably embarked on an “Economy of Resistance”: Local production for local markets with local money based on and for the development of the local economy; trading with friendly nations who share similar cultural and moral values – it’s called, regaining economic sovereignty. That’s key. That’s what most countries in the west under the yoke of the US empire and its puppets, enforced by NATO, have lost in the steadily increasing stranglehold of globalization. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, soon Mexico – and others are breaking loose from the fangs of the Washington Consensus that brought the world almost three decades of pure misery, exploitation and monetary enslavement.
Russia is strengthening her ties with China, with whom she has already for years a ruble-yuan swap agreement between the respective central banks, indicating a strong economic and trading relation. Both are members of the SCO – Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And Russia is also an integral part and link in President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative – BRI – a multi-trillion-yuan economic development scheme for the next at least hundred years, that will span the world with several transport routes, including shipping lines, ports and industrial expansion, as well as cultural exchange, education and research centers on the way. Members of the SCO encompass half the world’s population and account today already for about a third of the globes GDP – and growing fast, both in members as well as economic output.
Russia as part of this block of sovereign nations doesn’t need the west anymore, doesn’t need the Crédit Suisse confiscated 5 billion dollars anymore. Freedom is priceless. Sanctions are like the fiat currency they are based on; not more than rotten smelling hot air, and dissipating fast into oblivion.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Everyone speaks of the “$5 billion of Russian money” confiscated… but to whom does that money actually belong? (Shelving all ethical discussion of whether they stole it from other people).
I cannot imagine that the Russian state, or any organization associated with it, would be foolish enough to deposit money where the Washington thieves could get at it. Ordinary Russian people are also unlikely to place large sums in foreign currency with foreign banks.
Which leaves whom? The oligarchs who stole Russia’s resources and fled to the West to avoid retribution. And now the West steals their ill-gotten gains from them! What a good lesson for any others who might think of trying similar tricks in future. Maybe now some of those oligarchs will plead to be allowed to come back to Russia, bringing their tails (and their money) behind them.
This episode highlights perfectly the infinite duplicity and hypocrisy of the USA. They are forever preaching to the world about the virtues of the “free market” and the “rule of law”. Yet they are forever overriding, subverting and downright controlling markets – and whenever it suits them, they simply ignore the law and do what they like.
The post-WW2 financial regime initiated at Bretton Woods was aggravated in 1971, when Nixon removed the gold backing from the dollar. But the global framework of the IMF, World Bank, etc. remained anyway. The result: a global environment absolutely ruled by those who control the dollar. In financial terms, the US government arrived at its goal of world domination 70-80 years ahead of schedule.
The result of those unfair, biased, inequitable rules is what we see: the Washington creatures, to a great extent, own the world and control everyone in it. Any “world government” or institutions approximating to one would lead to exactly this kind of systematic abuse. That’s why we need to maintain a world made up of independent sovereign nations, none of which own or rule others.
Looks like we are headed for a world divided between two financial/economic systems- the USD world and the non-USD world.
Wasn’t this tried before- the Soviet bloc and the non Soviet bloc?
The infamous American gangster Al Capone would approve of this US seizure of Russian money, as this is a thinly disguised American economic shakedown in all but name.
Rip off America’s mask of “freedom and democracy,” and it’s obvious that America is a gangster nation from top to bottom.
Most hilarious is the fact that the USA tries to pimp itself as some kind of (snicker) Land of the Free.
However, America’s warped definition of freedom is the freedom to steal other people’s money–all while self-righteously running its mouth about being the Leader of the Free World.
It is long overdue to pull the plug on the United Snakes’ parasitic economy and way of life and let’s these American mofos crash and burn, as they deserve.
Peter, to your: ” dollar economy and the enslaving monetary system it produced, is an absolute fraud. It is a crime that would be punishable by any international court that deserves the name of a court of law”
I say, I totally agree with what you said, unfortunately the “international courts” are just as fraudulent as the monetary system.
Otherwise, excellent writing as usual.
So, it seems “freeze” is the wrong word. Maybe “chilled” or “in cold storage” or “in the cooler”? Apparently, still fungible.
Credit Suisse denies freezing accounts of its Russian clients
Business & Economy August 23, 17:39 UTC+3
One of Switzerland’s largest banks Credit Suisse has denied reports saying that it froze accounts of its Russian clients
© EPA/STEFFEN SCHMIDT
MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/. One of Switzerland’s largest banks Credit Suisse has denied reports saying that it froze accounts of its Russian clients. A spokesman with the bank told TASS that the bank “reclassified certain assets that came under sanctions” and this activity did not affect Russian clients.
“Credit Suisse cooperates with international regulators in jurisdictions where the bank conducts business, observing regulatory norms, which also includes sanctions against Russia. Following recent sanctions, as well as regulatory restrictions on the part of the United States, Credit Suisse reclassified certain assets that fall under these restrictions from Assets under Management to Assets under Custody. Such reclassification does not mean freezing assets,” the bank’s spokesman stressed.
This change did not affect the assets of the bank’s customers who are not under sanctions, the bank’s representative noted.
“This has not led to any financial losses and the formation of reserves. The Russian market is one of our priorities, and we continue to monitor the situation closely,” the spokesman said.
Earlier Reuters reported that Credit Suisse had frozen roughly 5 bln Swiss francs ($5 bln) of money linked to Russia to avoid falling foul of U.S. sanctions.
On August 22 the US planned to impose new sanctions on Russia over its alleged involvement in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the British city of Salisbury.
First of all, Washington introduces a ban on the supply of dual-use products to Moscow.
On August 2, US senators from both parties submitted a new bill tightening anti-Russia sanctions to the Congress. Particularly, the document stipulates expansion of restrictions against Russia’s energy and financial sectors, its tycoons and state-run enterprises, as well as sanctions against Russia’s sovereign debt. It also imposes a ban on granting licenses to US citizens for participation in activities related to certain oil production projects in the Russian Federation. The bill also targets introduction of sectoral sanctions against persons acting in the cyberspace.
http://tass.com/economy/1018381
Credit Suisse explains freezing of Russian assets
23 Aug in 15:00
Credit Suisse explains freezing of Russian assets
One of Switzerland’s largest banks, Credit Suisse denied freezing Russian assets, explaining that it has reclassified assets of some Russian clients.
The bank said that it works with international regulators wherever it does business to ensure compliance, including sanctions involving Russia.
“Following recent US sanctions and given US regulatory restrictions, Credit Suisse reclassified certain impacted assets from Assets under Management to Assets under Custody,” RT cited the statement as saying.
“This reclassification does not represent a freezing of the assets. In addition, non-sanctioned clients were not affected by the re-classification. Neither did this result in any financial loss or provision,” the bank added.
Credit Suisse says it remains highly committed to Russia and continues to monitor developments.
Earlier it was reported that Credit Suisse has suspended 5.1 billion francs ($5 billion) in assets linked to Russia as a result of the U.S. sanctions against the country.
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/news/Credit-Suisse-explains-freezing-of-Russian-assets.html
“Credit Suisse reclassified certain impacted assets from Assets under Management to Assets under Custody,”
Definitely sounds like public relations speak for the assets being no longer under the control of the client, and transferred to the control of the bankster.
The message is clear: resist the zionazi-nazi mafia and they, being sacrosanct and untouchable by law and civilized norms, will use any means to get back at you.
Nothing surprising by this Swiss move, as Swiss banks have a long relationship with US Government institutions, who use the banks for dirty activities. However, I do think that the Swiss have injured themselves. With this move they have lost the confidence of future customers, whether private or government. I have a feeling somebody else will in due course take over the role which Switzerland has today as far as banking goes. As for Russia, this move has done it no harm what so ever.
I think the Saker’s experience back in the 90s shows that Switzerland abandoned its’ neutrality for being a loyal member of the New World Order. Since the bankers run things in the NWO it is not surprising that the Swiss bankers would want to be on the team. I am surprised that the Russians have left any money in an institution where the NWO gangstas could get it.
A few days ago, the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, dared proposing that the EU detach itself from the international, totally privately run, Belgium registered SWIFT transfer system, as it is fully controlled by the US banking oligarchy, is operating in more than 200 countries and territories. He suggested that the EU create an independent transfer system, much like Russia and China have done, to free themselves from the financial slavehood to Washington. The reaction of one of his rightwing German countryman and parliamentarian was swift – it was not the right time to even think of de-coupling the EU from Washington, now where Russia is in dire straits and Germany and the rest of Europe needs the US more than ever. – Can you imagine!
In this pathetic, gutless Europe, it is highly questionable whether Mr. Mass’s excellent idea will survive and actually gain support. Hardly at this stage.
Heiko Maas’s proposal for Europe freeing itself from America’s financial control through the creation of its own independent (non-SWIFT) payment system is an important move–and no wonder that US vassal Angela Merikan … sorry Merkel has tried to “strangle the baby in the crib”
The Anglo American Empire will not be pleased with Germany escaping its claws and asserting an independent geopolitical/economic role in the world. Expect the Anglo Americans to launch their usual disinformation campaigns, psyops, and political destablization/regime change black ops.
“BRI – a multi-trillion-yuan economic development scheme for the next at least hundred years…”
Really? For the next hundred years at least? Really, Peter?
Much as I like Peter’s writing generally, it seems he’s speaking here like one of that multitude of economists who still haven’t faced up to ‘The Limits To Growth’ (qv). During quite a bit less than the next hundred years, those limits – especially the *worldwide* energy-shortage emergency that’s hoving up on the horizon, but including as well the growing shortages of many other commodities that are also absolutely vital essentials to run hitech industrial economies – those limits will be applying their ruthless force majeure to human plans for ever-expanding economic growth.
It’s not going to happen. Economic growthforever was from the first a nonsensical idea that was never rational. It’s now an idea which is well past its final sell-by date. Growthforever is a well-and-truly dead parrot. High time economists worthy of the name took that basic, non-negotiable fact of physical reality on-board and dealt with it.
Speaking just of the energy and commodity shortages now bearing down on us is still to say nothing of the other major forces which make up the suite of Synergising Global Crises (SGCs), such as global pollution (including the crucially-important greenhouse gases), the consequent, now-baked-in climate upheaval, the Sixth Extinction, and the *already-critical* human population overshoot. These over-riding realities simply can’t be ignored. They just have to be factored in when making any halfway-realistic economic plans and predictions.
Even if the BRICS/SCO-driven economic enterprise now taking off in the World Island manages to thrive for a decade or three, it will only be possible even for that brief period as a zero-sum game: what the Russia-China-guaranteed multi-polar world of BRICS/SCO proposes can only happen by draining the Anglozionist empire – the Washington Swamp and its overseas vassal-states – of such prosperity as it still has. There simply isn’t anywhere else left on this planet from which to extract the resources and commodities that BRI absolutely requires, if it’s to work at all, even for just a brief period. And at the end of that period, the SGCs will still be there, fiercer than ever, and tightening down the screws ever more, on the entire world – no exceptions. And do we imagine that the gics (gangsters-in-charge) running the Angozionist empire will simply go gentle into that good-night, without kicking up a whole lot of trouble?
I leave readers to suss-out for themselves the realworld likelihood of the Muskoid schemes to colonise Mars and mine the Asteroid Belt. Military, colonising, and mining space-fleets, eh? Using what exactly for materials and enabling energy supplies? Sure thing, Elon… dream on. Oh, and keep on sucking up the life-support subsidies from the Swamp for your crack-brained, pocket-lining fantasies – whilst you still can.
Why not?
There are it-is-only-a-matter-of-time-when-it-become-economically-feasible-to-get unlimited materials and energy out there to fuel no matter how big the economy will become in the future.
Just because the west and its ilk screwed themselves, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the world with the whole planet is doomed.
I’m having a good laugh at those doomsayers from the west saying the world is doomed, humanity is doomed, etc
Just because your “world” is doomed, it doesn’t mean that the Earth is doomed. It’s the other way around, the world is getting even better.
It’s a HUGE waste of time and energy to think negatively about the future.
The words Swiss, Switzerland, Suisse appear a dozen times in the first three paragraphs of this article alone. But are Credit Suisse & Co. really Swiss? Of course not, they happen to be all Jewish Mafia assets, registered in Switzerland. Once this is clarified, everybody gets it. At least subconsciously.
Because it isn’t only the Swiss banks who are Jewish Mafia assets, but almost all institutions, nations, persons mentioned in this article. In order of appearance:
Reuters, Switzerland, US dollar, Washington DC, Credit Suisse, UBS, FINMA, France, BNP Paribas, the US, Julius Baer, the UN, the EU, Heiko Maas*, SWIFT, Trump, Hillary Clinton, the Atlantisists, the Fifth Columnists, the Russian financial sector, the ruble, any international court, the forefathers, US treasury bonds, GMOs, NATO.
Uff! What were we talking about? Ah yes, de-dollarization. Easier said than done, because de-dollarization means getting rid of the Jewish Mafia, the most powerful player of the last two millennia. And as far as i know, its head honchos have no intention to retire anytime soon.
* Heiko Maas.
Forming together with Chanceller Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen (Minister of Defence) the crypto-Jewish backbone of Jewish Mafia occupied Germany. Before he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maas had a short stint as Minister of Justice, just long enough to introduce the ‘Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz’, a brutish internet censorship legislation most Germans are blissfully unaware of.
Therefore, hearing Maas – of all people – talking about a European SWIFT alternative has to be read a little bit less naively than Peter König does. This looks like another Jewish Mafia by-way-of-deception ruse …
LoL, swiss is another clown acting as if it really is a “neutral” country.
Cannot even having the freedom of formulating your own policy huh?
Just like other clowns in eu which is not surprising since it is the us regime having the idea of forming eu to make it easier to control in the 1st place.