The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office is prosecuting two Swiss nationals. Behind their watch business, they were laundering money from cocaine trafficking.
Andreas Maurer / ch media
They launder the money of organized crime and seem straight out of a James Bond film – or at least they embody all the clichés. Both own watch and jewelry stores in Zurich: Michele, 63, and Daniele, 56 (fictitious names).
But behind this elegant facade lies something dark, which was revealed to the Federal Police Office by the Italian judicial authorities. The latter spotted the two men during an investigation into the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia (southern Italy). Investigators then follow a car with a Zurich plate and ask Switzerland for information on its owner. This is the start of an international investigation for Switzerland.
Investigations show that the two Swiss launder the proceeds of the Italian mafia from cocaine trafficking. They transform “white gold” into real gold. From 2019 to 2023, they smuggle 34 million euros, one million Swiss francs and 830 kilos of gold across Europe.
They use their businesses in Switzerland to cover their tracks. Net profit: half a million francs.
Cars equipped with secret compartments
The two jewelers share the tasks: the younger one organizes, the older one leads. As a gold and jewelry dealer, he had hidden compartments installed in his car – in agreement with the authorities. In fact, he claims to have consulted the road traffic office of the canton of Zurich to find out whether this modification required authorization.
For each delivery, Michele receives an address on WhatsApp. He immediately deletes the message and takes the road for 1400 kilometersdirection the south of Italy or a container terminal in Belgium. There, an anonymous courier gives him a sports bag full of cash. He never counts the tickets.
He hides the money in his secret compartments and then goes to a gold dealer in Milan. There he exchanges the notes for gold and resells them through his business. During these trips, he regularly stops at Daniele’s watch and jewelry boutiques. If customs checks him, he shows the goods and identifies himself as a gold trader.
Daniele and Michele sell gold as an ordinary export commodity. They then take planes from Zurich to Istanbul or Dubai, or transport the gold by car or truck to Germany and Turkey.
150 police officers in three countries
In June 2023, more than 150 police officers intervene simultaneously in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. They arrest ten suspects playing a key role in this international network.
In Switzerland, the police arrest Daniele and Michele. In pre-trial detention, the two men first try to justify themselves. They immediately recognized the transport of silver and gold, but claimed not to know where the money came from. According to them, these were legal transactions, which they had simply failed to report correctly.
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office is leading a criminal trial against the duo. The police put their phones and company cars under surveillance: the vehicles were equipped with GPS trackers and microphones. In addition, officers analyzed videos from public spaces. Thus, they reconstruct the journeys of the gold trader, from container terminals to shopping center parking lots.
All banknotes are contaminated with cocaine. Traces of drugs were also found in secret compartments of cars, as well as on the gear lever and steering wheel.
Added to this is a mass of data from messaging surveillance: Daniele, as organizer, used a phone encrypted with the Sky-ECC program, nicknamed the “WhatsApp of gangsters”. Organized crime thought it had found a safe communications channel – until police breached it during a European operation.
In this case, the federal judicial police analyzed 115,000 messages. They demonstrate that Daniele was in contact with two well-organized cocaine traffickers operating on a large scale. They are believed to be part of a well-established global criminal network.
Huge file, quick trial
The legal process carried risks for both parties. The Public Prosecutor’s Office could fail to prove the link with cocaine trafficking in court. Daniele and Michele, for their part, could remain in preventive detention for a long time – with uncertainty as to the outcome of the trial.
A compromise was therefore found. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is pursuing this case under a simplified procedure. This means that defendants must plead guilty and accept the proposed sentence. The court simply validates the agreement. Only then will it be known whether, and for how long, the Zurich money launderers will have to go to prison.
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Translated and adapted from German by Tanja Maeder
