Pierre Mirabaud convicted in $101.7 million bribery and money laundering scheme

Pierre Mirabaud, the former president of the Swiss Bankers Association, has been convicted of bribery and aggravated money laundering by Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona. The 77-year-old former senior partner of a Geneva-based private bank admitted to making approximately SFr82.3 million (roughly $101.7 million) in payments to Fahad Al-Rajaan, the former director-general of Kuwait’s Public Institution for Social Security.

The payments, which occurred between 2000 and 2012, were intended to secure the placement of Kuwaiti state pension assets into Mirabaud’s bank and its investment funds. By late 2012, the Kuwaiti pension fund had approximately $595.3 million invested in these vehicles. Mirabaud admitted to personally earning $1.8 million from the arrangement, describing it as a “very grave error of judgment.”

In addition to the bribery charges, Mirabaud was convicted of executing over 122 transfers totaling nearly SFr77 million, which prosecutors stated were designed to conceal the criminal origin of the funds. The court handed Mirabaud a two-year suspended prison sentence and ordered him to pay SFr82,000.