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Swiss Bank Pushed Offshore Middleman to Skip Anti-Money Laundering Checks for Wealthy Clients Clariden, part of Credit Suisse, sought highly secretive structures for some clients. In December 2006, an official at Switzerland’s Clariden Bank, part of Credit Suisse, contacted the Singapore office of the offshore services firm Portcullis TrustNet to discuss a sensitive question. The banker wanted TrustNet’s help administering an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands and owned by a group of wealthy private-equity investors, according to internal TrustNet emails obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In the sprawling offshore world, it wasn’t unusual for a bank in one country to ask a service provider in a far-off place to oversee a company based in yet another jurisdiction. But the request came with a wrinkle: Clariden didn’t want to disclose to TrustNet the identities of its clients. Law requires middlemen like TrustNet to ver