$1,000,000,000 of looted Nazi cash may have been hidden in mystery bank account for 78 years
Investigators across the world are attempting to find more than a billion dollars of cash looted by the Nazis thought to be hidden in a secret bank account.
The treasure hunt was reignited after a list containing the names of 12,000 Nazis – thought to have been destroyed decades ago – recently resurfaced in a warehouse in Argentina.
The list names former Nazis and sympathisers who fled to the South American country following the end of World War Two.
It also mentions details of all those who transferred money – believed to have been ransacked from Jewish victims – to an account in Switzerland, thought to belong to the Credit Suisse bank.
Now lawyers from around the world are scrambling to recover the lost fortune, believed to be worth around £813,980,000, which is rumoured to have been lying dormant in a single account for 78 years.
The hunt is being headed by Argentinian investigator Pedro Filipuzzi, who discovered the list before handing it over to the Simon Wiesenthal Center – a Jewish human rights organisation which conducts holocaust research and hunts Nazis.
Officials from the organisation said they had sent a letter to Credit Suisse vice-president Christian Kung, which read: ‘We believe it very probable that these dormant accounts hold monies looted from Jewish victims, under the Nuremberg Aryanization laws of the 1930s.
‘We are aware that you already have claimants as alleged heirs of Nazis in the list.’
Investigators are understood to have requested access to the Credit Suisse’s archives in order to recover the funds on behalf of the remaining survivors of the holocaust.
Dr Ariel Gelblung, who works for the organisation, said: ‘Not all of the 12,000 people on that list were people who transferred Nazi money to Germany, but all the people who did so are on that list.
‘The bank has to open its files so we can investigate.’
Credit Suisse has previously been accused of hoarding secret fortunes belonging to clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption from the 1940s to the present day.
Also named in the list are a number of German companies who had offices in Argentina during the 1930s and 1940s.
Officially the funds were used for the ‘German Winter Aid’, an annual donation drive by the National Socialist People’s Welfare allegedly used to help finance charitable work.
But it is believed a significant portion of the funds were instead funnelled to a secret account in Credit Suisse, where they were personally handled by the bank’s then-manager Ludwig Freude who died in 1956.
Lawyers from Buenos Aires, Washington, Zurich and Berlin are now involved in the hunt for the lost fortune, with up to 40 employees – including historians, lawyers and financial experts – also involved in the search.
A spokesperson for Credit Suisse told Bild: ‘So far we have not found an account.’
Meanwhile, an unnamed lawyer close to the case told the German newspaper: ‘If the account was created under the name of a company and not under the name of [then bank president] Ludwig Freude, then it is almost impossible to identify the account.’
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