Tax scandal leaves Swiss giant reeling

UBS could lose its licence in America after an official confessed to illicit tactics that helped clients avoid the Revenue. Nick Mathiason reports

Nick Mathiason
The Observer,
Sunday June 29, 2008

It was an offer the Californian real-estate billionaire Igor Olenicoff couldn't refuse. For several years, the US Internal Revenue Service had been on his tail. Suspecting serial tax evasion running into tens of millions of dollars, the IRS painstakingly amassed enough information to jail the Russian immigrant for decades.

In 2006, tax investigators offered Olenicoff, a man who has strong connections with Boris Yeltsin, a deal. In return for the identity of those who helped him evade taxes, his sentence would be slashed. It took Olenicoff, who owned 11,000 houses and a large collection of high-grade offices, less than 30 seconds to make up his mind.