Ex-UBS banker charged in tax evasion

The indictment cites nine US customers that Lack assisted. He helped them withdraw cash from undeclared accounts and discouraged them from joining an IRS amnesty program, according to the indictment. UBS, the largest Swiss bank, avoided prosecution in 2009 by paying $780 million and admitting it helped Americans evade taxes.

“Lack would and did solicit US customers to open undeclared accounts at UBS and Cantonal Bank because Swiss bank secrecy would assist US customers to conceal their ownership of the accounts,’’ according to the indictment.

Lack is accused of conspiring with Renzo Gadola, a UBS banker from 1995 until 2008. Gadola pleaded guilty Dec. 22 in US court in Miami, admitting that he encouraged US clients to move their undeclared UBS accounts to Basler Kantonalbank.

Lack was the executive director of UBS North America International until 2003, according to the indictment. That year, he set up Lack & Partner Asset Management AG in Zurich. Lack didn’t immediately return a call left at the firm yesterday.

Michael Buess, a spokesman for Basler Kantonalbank, a Swiss regional lender based in Basel, said he couldn’t confirm or deny any “cooperation between Lack and Basler Kantonalbank.’’

Lack traveled to the United States to visit customers with undeclared accounts, giving one a prepaid cellphone to call him, according to the indictment.

Since 2009, more than two dozen UBS clients have been charged, as well as several bankers and advisers.