Trump admin urged to probe Swiss bank UBS for its Nazi-linked accounts
The Trump administration is being urged to investigate Swiss bank UBS for allegedly obstructing congressional efforts to examine its “deep” ties to the Nazi regime, including accounts tied to looted Jewish assets and SS officers who fled to Argentina after World War II.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to a State Department official focused on combating antisemitism, calling the bank’s conduct “a historic shame” and asking for help advancing his investigation into UBS’s alleged obstruction. He also asked what steps the office plans “to help make the Jewish people whole” from Nazi-era theft of money, gold, and art.
Grassley’s letter copied Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as well.
Grassley has led a bipartisan probe since April 2023 into Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse, later acquired by UBS, over undisclosed Nazi-linked accounts. He said earlier investigations, including those in the 1990s, failed to deliver full justice. Credit Suisse previously reached a $1.25 billion settlement in 1999 with Holocaust survivors over forced transfers of Jewish assets.
Subsequent findings have suggested broader links were not fully uncovered. A 2020 Simon Wiesenthal Center report linked up to 12,000 Nazis who fled to Argentina to accounts tied to a Credit Suisse predecessor. In 2023, UBS acquired Credit Suisse for $3 billion while a court-appointed review was ongoing. Independent monitor Neil Barofsky later identified 890 accounts potentially tied to Hitler’s war effort and reported that roughly 23,000 pages of Third Reich-related documents are being “redacted or withheld,” later estimating up to 27,400 missing pages. He also said UBS had not provided a privilege log or timeline for its production.
Barofsky further alleged UBS made “false and misleading statements” about 127 accounts tied to forcibly transferred Jewish assets, and said investigators were blocked from pursuing leads involving SS connections and Nazi “ratlines” to Latin America. He also said he was fired between 2022 and 2023 after refusing to “suppress the truth.”
UBS says it has provided access to about 16.5 million pages of documents and is withholding less than 0.1% to protect attorney-client privilege tied to 1990s Holocaust litigation. It also cites litigation risks that could reopen the 1999 settlement, says it has spent over $250 million reviewing Nazi-era accounts since 2021, and denies withholding pre-1990s historical materials embedded in privileged files.
