Ex-UBS banker indicted in tax scam

A former banker at UBS AG and an adviser from Liechtenstein have been charged with helping clients avoid paying taxes by opening secret bank accounts. The two financiers — former UBS private banker Bradley Birkenfeld and Liechtenstein adviser Mario Staggl — courted rich Americans and helped some of them avoid paying taxes, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Appearing in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Mr. Birkenfeld pleaded not guilty. He is now out on bond and is wearing an electronic monitoring device, according to the report. The U.S. investigation into the alleged tax schemes at Zurich, Switzerland UBS comes amid a multinational probe into the role that Liechtenstein, a European principality, played as a tax haven for citizens from at least eight countries, the report stated. One client was billionaire developer Igor Olenicoff, chief executive of Olen Properties in Newport Beach, Calif., who set up a web of secret bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to avoid taxes on $200 million in assets, a person familiar with the U.S. case told the Journal. Mr. Olenicoff has been cooperating with investigators in the wake of his December guilty plea to a criminal count of filing a false 2002 U.S. tax return. He was ordered to pay $52 million.