Investigators Discover Nearly 900 Nazi-Linked Accounts at Swiss Bank

The latest 2026 hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee brought old ghosts back into the spotlight. Lawmakers revealed that investigators uncovered about 890 previously undisclosed accounts tied to Nazi officials and entities at the now-defunct Credit Suisse.

The discovery came from an ongoing independent investigation inherited by UBS after its emergency takeover of Credit Suisse in 2023. What started as a corporate cleanup has turned into a moral reckoning.

The 890 Accounts That Changed the Conversation

E News / The investigation is led by independent ombudsperson Neil Barofsky. He told senators that these accounts were linked to major Nazi institutions, including the German Foreign Office, a German arms manufacturer, and even the German Red Cross.

More troubling were the expanded ties to the SS, including its economic arm that profited from forced labor. Senator Chuck Grassley, who chairs the committee, confirmed the number publicly and called attention to the scale of what had been hidden.

The number, nearly 900 accounts, suggests something deeper than oversight. It suggests a network of financial support that stretched further than many previously believed. Barofsky described conduct that shocked even seasoned lawmakers. He said the bank was willing to expropriate funds from Jewish account holders and transfer those assets to Nazi authorities.

He told the story of one victim who boarded a train to a concentration camp after being stripped of his savings. The man trusted a Swiss bank to protect his family’s money, but that trust vanished at the worst possible moment.

Money, Escape Routes, and Missing Documents

The investigation did not stop at frozen accounts. Investigators also uncovered evidence that Credit Suisse played a role in financing so-called ratlines, the escape routes used by prominent Nazis to flee Europe after the war.

According to testimony, Argentine authorities used an account at the bank to facilitate bribes and payments to European officials. These payments helped keep escape routes to Argentina open, and the total reached about 17 million Swiss francs in today’s value.

The revelations fueled anger on both sides of the aisle. Senator John Kennedy accused UBS of withholding documents to limit further financial liability. He told bank executives that if more money was owed, then they should pay it. His blunt remarks reflected a growing frustration with what some senators see as corporate resistance.

The tension centered on about 150 documents that UBS has refused to turn over. Bank executives, including Americas President Robert Karofsky and Group General Counsel Barbara Levi, said they had already shared over 16.5 million documents and opened 18 archives across seven countries.

Levi argued that the remaining documents are protected by the attorney-client privilege. She also said UBS faces an active threat of litigation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other groups.

Barofsky pushed back hard. He said the withheld documents are core to the heart of the investigation because they could confirm whether specific Nazis or Nazi enablers held accounts.

He revealed that when investigators ran the names of Nazi-affiliated individuals against the bank’s database of supposedly privileged documents, they got positive hits. That finding raised serious questions about how relevant those hidden records really are.

Senator Dick Durbin pressed UBS on why full disclosure remains unresolved decades after a 1998 settlement. That agreement required Swiss banks to pay 1.25 billion dollars to Holocaust survivors and their families.

What This Means?

GTN / The renewed investigation traces back to a 2020 discovery by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The group identified 12,000 suspected Nazis who had settled in Argentina after the war.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper testified that genocides require organization, infrastructure, and access to banks. He argued that financial institutions are not bystanders in history, but active enablers when they choose profit over ethics.

Cooper called for a permanent repository of the documents emerging from Barofsky’s research. He said those records should be open to researchers, journalists, and future generations.