Credit Suisse Spy Agency Was More Global, Inept Than Previously Reported

The most amazing thing about Credit Suisse’s CEO-sinking spy scandal isn’t that the bank’s internal KGB existed at all, but how hilariously, spectacularly shitty it was at the job. The most important thing, after all, about a covert operation is not the information it uncovers, but that it remain covert, undetected by those under its watch. Not only were CS’s Keystone Kops unable to achieve this most basic secrecy over and over and over again, they weren’t able to concoct an effective cover-up of their rare successful operations from the world’s most credulous law firm.

The additional incidents of surveillance found by Homburger AG predate 2019’s high-profile scandal that involved two employees being followed, and they weren’t ordered by the same people, according to people familiar with the law firm’s findings….

In October 2017, the bank suspected an employee in New York misused confidential information and had the employee followed outside work.

The bank was concerned the information may have been used in a hedge fund’s proposal to Credit Suisse to break up its operations, and that the New York employee was connected to a backer of that proposal, a former high-ranking Credit Suisse executive, Gaël de Boissard….

The second incident was in March 2018, when an investment bank employee in Asia was put under observation after being dismissed, the people familiar with the Homburger report said. While still at the bank, the employee had threatened colleagues, who feared he might turn violent.

Credit Suisse Spied on More Employees Than Previously Disclosed [WSJ]