The Venezuela events have unleashed “panic” for Swiss megabank UBS, the financial blog Inside Paradeplatz reported on Jan. 5. The story was picked up the next day by Business Punk, whose editor then signed a story for Focus, published Jan. 13 under the headline “A Swiss Time-Bomb.”
The original story: According to Inside Paradeplatz’s sources, UBS instructed wealthy Venezuelan clients to withdraw their wealth from UBS accounts and move it to accounts in Panama or the U.S., on the eve of the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro. According to Inside Paradeplatz, those wealthy customers belonged to Maduro’s circle of friends, and UBS feared U.S. sanctions.
