Before Ukraine Invasion, Russia and China Cemented Economic Ties

 

"Facing a wary United States and worried about depending on imports by sea, China is buying more energy and food from its northern neighbor.

BEIJING — As Russia fights in Ukraine, Moscow has a powerful economic ally to help it resist Western sanctions: China.

Chinese purchases of oil from Russia in December surpassed its purchases from Saudi Arabia. Six days before the military campaign began, Russia announced a yearslong deal to sell 100 million tons of coal to China — a contract worth more than $20 billion. And hours before Russia began bombing Ukraine, China agreed to buy Russian wheat despite concerns about plant diseases.

In a throwback to the 1950s, when Mao Zedong worked closely with Joseph Stalin and then Nikita Khrushchev, China is again drawing close to Russia. As the United States and the European Union have become wary of China, Beijing’s leaders have decided that their best geopolitical prospects lie in marrying their vast industrial might with Russia’s formidable natural resources.

Recent food and energy deals are just the latest signals of China’s economic alignment with Russia.

“What happened up to now is only a beginning for both the Russian expansionism by force and the Chinese economic and financial support to Russia,” Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said in a text message. “This does not mean that China directly supports in any degree that expansionism — this only means that Beijing strongly feels the necessity to maintain and boost strategic partnership with Moscow.”

The United States and the European Union are hoping that sanctions force Russia to reconsider its policies. But Wang Wenbin, the Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesman, said at a briefing on Friday that China opposed the use of sanctions.

“Sanctions are never an effective way to solve the problems,” he said. “I hope relevant parties will still try to solve the problem through dialogue and consultation.”

At the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has imposed an awkward diplomatic quandary on China by violating the principle of national sovereignty that the Chinese leaders regard as sacrosanct. While President Xi Jinping of China has not criticized Russia publicly, he could use his country’s economic relationship with its northern neighbor as leverage to persuade the Russians to resolve the crisis quickly.

Mr. Xi and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke by phone on Friday. An official Chinese statement said afterward that Mr. Xi had expressed support for Russia in negotiating an agreement with Ukraine — a stance that Mr. Putin has also favored, provided that Ukraine accepts his terms.

Until now, much of China’s energy and food imports came across seas patrolled by the U.S. or Indian navies. As China’s leaders have focused lately on the possibility of conflict, with military spending last year growing four times as fast as other government spending, they have emphasized greater reliance on Russia for crucial supplies.

China and Russia share a nearly 2,700-mile border, and in recent years China has become Russia’s largest source of imports and the biggest destination for its exports.

“Given the geopolitical tensions, Russia is a very natural geopolitical partner,” said Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing.

Initial Western sanctions on Russia have focused on limiting technology exports and imposing financial penalties. For now, U.S. officials have avoided targeting consumer goods, agricultural products and energy, to try to avoid harming ordinary people and further fueling inflation.

China is the world’s dominant manufacturer of electronics, machinery and other manufactured goods, and has been supplying them to Russia in exchange for food and energy.

A new cornerstone of relations between China and Russia is a statement that some Western officials say is effectively a Sino-Russian nonaggression pact. It was released by Beijing and Moscow on Feb. 4, when Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin met before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The statement said the countries’ friendship “has no bounds.”

The two nations have been growing their ties for years, and the strength of the bond appeared to give Mr. Putin the confidence to move troops and military equipment from Russia’s border with China and other parts of Siberia earlier this winter to Russia’s border with Ukraine and Belarus. The more robust relationship is also ushering in closer economic cooperation.

“The joint statement is strong and has lasting consequences for the new world order,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a research professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

The Chinese and Russian governments share many values, particularly their antipathy to sanctions the West imposes on human-rights grounds. “The two sides firmly believe that defending democracy and human rights should not be used as a tool to exert pressure on other countries,” their pact on Feb. 4 said.

When the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, China helped Russia evade them.

But it is not clear if China will help Russia evade sanctions put in place this week. On Tuesday, the Biden administration added to previous measures by announcing sanctions against Russia’s two largest financial institutions and sweeping restrictions on advanced technologies that can be exported to Russia. The technological curbs, when taken in concert with allies, would block roughly a fifth of Russian imports, the administration said.

Chinese companies that circumvent those rules could face escalating punishment by the United States, including criminal and civil penalties, said Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Those businesses could also be cut off from American technology and the financial system.

ZTE and Huawei, two Chinese firms that were barred from receiving American technological exports, attracted the attention of the U.S. government in part for evading sanctions on Iran.

“The interesting question is: Is China going to comply with this?” Mr. Chorzempa said. China also has a law designed to penalize companies for following extraterritorial sanctions by countries like the United States, he said, all factors that “could put companies in a real bind.”

“If they don’t comply with the U.S., they’re in trouble with the U.S., but if they don’t comply with China, they could also face penalties in China,” he said.

Of course, collecting fines from companies that are unwilling to pay and monitoring whether businesses comply with the rules could be difficult, Mr. Chorzempa added. “It’s already proving difficult to monitor the things that are already controlled, and if you expand that list, that’s going to be a real challenge to verify what’s going to Russia,” he said.

The Biden administration’s export controls apply to goods produced in any country as long as they use U.S. technology — including chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and the Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry Corporation.

Both of those companies continue to rely on the United States for certain components and manufacturing technology, said Gabriel Wildau, a managing director at Teneo, a consulting firm. If they continue supplying to Russia, SMIC and other Chinese companies could be cut off from U.S. technology, the same kind of penalty that crippled Huawei. On Friday, Taiwan Semiconductor said it was committed to complying with the export controls.

“If Beijing is viewed as Moscow’s enabler, pressure will rise in the U.S. Congress to extend these restrictions,” Mr. Wildau wrote in a note to clients. Beijing would also face the risk that other major technology exporters, like Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands, “would adopt Washington’s tougher line,” he said.

China’s state-owned banks could also face risks for continuing to lend to Russia. China and Russia have been settling more of their trade using the renminbi and the ruble. Beijing has also been trying to develop the digital use of its currency as an alternative to the dollar, which could help Russia limit the effect of financial sanctions.

But Chinese banks are still deeply reliant on the U.S. dollar. While major Chinese banks already appeared to be pulling back their financing for Russia, Mr. Wildau said, Beijing could choose to support Russia using smaller state-owned banks that don’t do a lot of international business that requires the use of the dollar.

China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and other countries have all felt the brunt of American financial sanctions, highlighting their need for more trade and investment in currencies other than the dollar, Mr. Mok said.

Even if Chinese entities circumvent U.S. rules, Beijing is unlikely to publicize it. Despite its professed distaste for sanctions, China regularly punishes trading partners that have offended it in some way. But it does this through unannounced orders sent to customs officials, to avoid clear violations of international trade rules.

China currently has an unannounced trade embargo against Lithuania, after Lithuania agreed to let Taiwan open first in the world office with Taiwan name on it there. Russia also has frosty relations with Lithuania, a former Soviet republic that has joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

China quietly halted purchases of barley, coal, wine and several other commodities from Australia for more than a year, and stopped exports of crucial rare earth metals to Japan for two months in 2010 over a territorial dispute.

China’s embrace of Russia on energy, food and financial issues carries risks for Beijing and for Mr. Xi.

China is running huge and rapidly rising trade surpluses with the United States and European nations. If China is perceived to be enabling Mr. Putin’s aggressive moves, that could strengthen support in the West for tariffs or other curbs on technology and trade.

Further trade barriers might start to wean Western companies and consumers from their reliance on Chinese factories, which have created tens of millions of jobs in China.

Anticipating such a threat, Mr. Xi has worked hard over the last several years to reduce China’s reliance on other countries by subsidizing companies to make a nearly complete range of industrial goods domestically.

In a speech in 2020, he ordered that China “tighten the dependence of the international industrial chain on our country, so as to develop a strong countermeasure and deterrent ability against external attempts to sever our supply chains.”

Because of China actions, the sanctions against Russia are not giving desired action for us, the West. Because of high inflation in Covid time the sanctions are dangerous for Western economy. The sanctions should be stopped.

Didžiulis informacijos nutekėjimas atskleidžia, kaip „Credit Suisse“ tarnavo stipriesiems ir šnipams

„Daugiau nei 18 000 sąskaitų nutekėję duomenys rodo, kad Šveicarijos bankas praleido raudonas vėliavėles arba jų nepaisė.

 

Šveicarijos bankų klientų sąrašai yra viena griežčiausiai saugomų paslapčių pasaulyje, sauganti kai kurių turtingiausių planetos žmonių tapatybę ir įkalčius, kaip jie kaupė savo turtus.

 

Dabar nepaprastas duomenų nutekėjimas iš „Credit Suisse“, vieno žymiausių pasaulio bankų, atskleidžia, kaip bankas laikė šimtus milijonų dolerių valstybių vadovams, žvalgybos pareigūnams, sankcijomis paveiktiems verslininkams ir žmogaus teisių pažeidėjams ir daugeliui kitų.

 

Savarankiškai apibūdintas informatorius Vokietijos laikraščiui Süddeutsche Zeitung nutekino duomenis apie daugiau nei 18 000 banko sąskaitų, kuriose bendrai laikoma daugiau nei 100 mlrd. dolerių. Laikraštis pasidalino duomenimis su ne pelno siekiančia žurnalistikos grupe „Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project“ ir 46 kitomis naujienų organizacijomis visame pasaulyje, įskaitant „The New York Times“.

 

Duomenys apima sąskaitas, kurios buvo atidarytos nuo 1940-ųjų iki 2010-ųjų, bet neapima dabartinių banko operacijų.

 

Tarp žmonių, išvardytų, kaip laikančiais milijonų dolerių vertės sumas „Credit Suisse“ sąskaitose, buvo Jordanijos karalius Abdullah II ir du buvusio Egipto stipruolio Hosnio Mubarako sūnūs. Tarp kitų sąskaitų turėtojų buvo Pakistano žvalgybos vadovo sūnūs, vadovo, padėjusio pervesti milijardus dolerių iš Jungtinių Valstijų ir kitų šalių mudžahedams Afganistane devintajame dešimtmetyje, ir Venesuelos pareigūnai, įtraukti į ilgalaikį korupcijos skandalą.

 

Nutekėjimas rodo, kad „Credit Suisse“ atidarė sąskaitas ir toliau aptarnavo ne tik itin turtingus žmones, bet ir žmones, kurių pinigų probleminė kilmė būtų akivaizdi kiekvienam, suvedus pavardęs paieškos sistemoje.

 

Šveicarijos bankai jau seniai susiduria su teisiniais draudimais paimti su nusikalstama veikla susijusius pinigus, sakė buvęs Šveicarijos kovos su pinigų plovimu agentūros vadovas Danielis Thelesklafas. Tačiau, pasak jo, įstatymas paprastai nebuvo vykdomas.

 

Candice Sun, banko atstovė, pareiškime teigė, kad „Credit Suisse griežtai atmeta kaltinimus ir išvadas apie tariamą banko verslo praktiką“. Ji sakė, kad daugelis nutekėjusių sąskaitų siekia dešimtmečius, kai „įstatymai, praktika ir finansų institucijų lūkesčiai labai skyrėsi nuo dabartinių“.

 

Ponia Sun teigė, kad nors „Credit Suisse“ negali komentuoti konkrečių klientų, daugelis nutekintoje duomenų bazėje nurodytų sąskaitų jau buvo uždarytos. „Džiaugiamės, kad iš likusių aktyvių paskyrų buvo atliktas tinkamas patikrinimas, peržiūros ir kiti su kontrole susiję veiksmai, įskaitant laukiančius paskyros uždarymą“, – sakė ji.

 

Ponia Sun pridūrė, kad panašu, kad nutekėjimas yra dalis „bendrų pastangų diskredituoti banką ir Šveicarijos finansų rinką, kuri per pastaruosius kelerius metus patyrė didelių pokyčių“.

 

Nutekėjimas įvyko po vadinamųjų Panamos dokumentų 2016 m., Rojaus dokumentų 2017 m. ir Pandoros dokumentų praėjusiais metais. Visi jie atskleidžia slaptą bankų, advokatų kontorų ir ofšorinių finansinių paslaugų teikėjų veiklą, leidžiančią turtingiems žmonėms ir institucijoms, įskaitant tuos, kurie yra kaltinami nusikaltimais, perkelti didžiules pinigų sumas, iš esmės neprieinamas mokesčių rinkėjams ar teisėsaugai.

 

Tikėtina, kad naujos informacijos atskleidimas sustiprins teisinę ir politinę Šveicarijos bankų pramonės ir ypač „Credit Suisse“ kontrolę. Bankas jau atsidūrė krizėje dėl staigaus dviejų aukščiausių vadovų nušalinimo.

 

Šveicarija jau seniai yra prieglobstis žmonėms, norintiems paslėpti pinigus, dėl savo griežtų banko paslapties įstatymų. Per pastarąjį dešimtmetį didžiausi šalies bankai, ypač du jos milžinai, Credit Suisse ir UBS, tapo JAV ir kitų šalių valdžios institucijų, kurios bando susidoroti su mokesčių slėpimu, pinigų plovimu ir kitais nusikaltimais, taikiniu.

 

2014 m. „Credit Suisse“ pripažino kaltu dėl sąmokslo padėti amerikiečiams pateikti klaidingas mokesčių deklaracijas ir sutiko sumokėti baudas, baudas ir grąžinti 2,6 mlrd. dolerių.

 

Po trejų metų bankas Teisingumo departamentui sumokėjo 5,3 mlrd. dolerių. Praėjusį rudenį ji sutiko sumokėti 475 milijonus dolerių JAV ir Didžiosios Britanijos valdžios institucijoms, kad būtų išspręstas tyrimas dėl atkatų ir kyšininkavimo schemos Mozambike. O šį mėnesį Šveicarijoje prasidėjo teismo procesas, kuriame „Credit Suisse“ kaltinamas leidęs narkotikų prekeiviams per banką išplauti milijonus eurų.

 

Teisingumo departamentas ir Senato finansų komitetas taip pat tiria, ar JAV piliečiai ir toliau turi nedeklaruotų sąskaitų banke.

 

Keletas buvusių „Credit Suisse“ darbuotojų praėjusių metų pabaigoje federaliniams kaltintojams sakė, kad bankas ir toliau slėpė šimtus milijonų dolerių klientams dar ilgai po to, kai 2014 m. buvo pripažintas kaltu, remiantis pernai buvusio banko pareigūno ir banko advokato pareikštu informatoriaus ieškiniu. kiti buvę darbuotojai. (Ieškinys buvo atmestas Teisingumo departamentui pareiškus, kad jis „trukdo vykstančioms diskusijoms su Credit Suisse“ dėl sandorių su JAV piliečių turimomis Šveicarijos banko sąskaitomis.)

 

Žiniasklaidos konsorciumas naujausią informacijos nutekėjimą pavadino „Suisse paslaptimis“. Iš daugiau nei 18 000 susijusių banko sąskaitų maždaug 100 JAV piliečių turėjo sąskaitas, tačiau nė vienas nėra viešas asmuo.

 

Vienas didžiausių apreiškimų yra tai, kad „Credit Suisse“ ir toliau bendradarbiavo su klientais net po to, kai banko pareigūnai pažymėjo įtartiną veiklą, susijusią su jų finansais.

 

Vienas sąskaitos savininkas buvo buvęs Venesuelos energetikos viceministras Nervis Villalobos.

 

„Credit Suisse“ atitikties skyriaus darbuotojai turėjo pagrindo būti atsargiems dėl verslo su juo. Remiantis Ispanijos policijos ataskaita, kurią gavo žiniasklaidos konsorciumas, bankas turėjo 2008 m. išorės išsamaus patikrinimo įmonės ataskaitą, kurioje išsamiai aprašomi kaltinimai korupcija, susiję su V. Villalobosu ir Venesuelos valstybine naftos kompanija Petróleos de Venezuela. („The Times“ peržiūrėjo pranešimą.)

 

Vis dėlto „Credit Suisse“ 2011 m. atidarė jam sąskaitą, rodo nutekinti banko duomenys. 2013 metais uždarytoje sąskaitoje buvo net 10 mln. dolerių.

 

Pono Villaloboso, kuriam Teisingumo departamentas 2017 metais buvo apkaltintas baudžiamuoju įsakymu, advokatai į prašymus pakomentuoti neatsakė.

 

Iš viso buvo 25 „Credit Suisse“ sąskaitos, kuriose iš viso buvo apie 270 mln. Sąskaitos liko atviros po to, kai skandalas pradėjo viešėti, tačiau buvo uždarytos iki baudžiamosios bylos iškėlimo.

 

Bankas taip pat atidarė sąskaitas Zimbabvės verslininkui, kuriam JAV ir Europos valdžios institucijos skyrė sankcijas už ryšius su ilgamečio šalies prezidento Roberto Mugabe vyriausybe. Įvedus sankcijas, sąskaitos buvo atidarytos keletą mėnesių.

 

Nutekintoje banko informacijoje buvo daug sąskaitų, susijusių su vyriausybės pareigūnais Viduriniuose Rytuose ir už jos ribų. Šie duomenys kelia klausimų, kaip valstybės pareigūnai ir jų artimieji susikrovė didžiulius turtus korupcijos apimtame regione.

 

Buvusio Egipto prezidento Hosni Mubarako sūnūs Alaa ir Gamalas Mubarakai iš viso įvairiuose taškuose turėjo šešias sąskaitas, įskaitant vieną 2003 m., kurios vertė buvo 196 mln. dolerių.

 

Pareiškime „The New York Times“ Mubarako advokatai atsisakė komentuoti konkrečias sąskaitas, tačiau teigė, kad teiginys, kad bet koks Mubarako turtas buvo „suterštas dėl bet kokio neteisėtumo arba dėl bet kokio palankumo ar įtakos panaudojimo“, būtų „ir nepagrįstas, ir šmeižikiškas“.

 

Bet koks jų turėtas turtas, teigiama pranešime, buvo iš jų „sėkmingos profesinės verslo veiklos“.

 

Jordanijos karalius Abdullah II, vienas iš nedaugelio valdžioje likusių po informacijos nutekinimo pareigūnų, turėjo šešias sąskaitas, įskaitant vieną, kurios likutis viršijo 224 mln. dolerių.

 

Jordanijos karališkasis hašimitų teismas savo pareiškime nurodė, kad su banko sąskaitomis nebuvo „neteisėto ar netinkamo elgesio“. Jiems priklausė dalis privataus karaliaus turto, kuris buvo naudojamas asmeninėms išlaidoms, karališkiems projektams padėti jordaniečiams ir islamo šventųjų vietų Jeruzalėje, kurių saugotojas yra jis, priežiūrai.

 

Aukšti žvalgybos pareigūnai ir jų atžalos iš kelių šalių, bendradarbiavusių su JAV kovoje su terorizmu, taip pat turėjo pinigų „Credit Suisse“.

 

Kaip Pakistano žvalgybos agentūros vadovas, generolas Akhtaras Abduras Rahmanas Khanas padėjo nukreipti milijardus dolerių grynųjų ir kitos pagalbos iš JAV ir kitų šalių mudžahedams Afganistane, kad paremtų kovą su Sovietų Sąjunga.

 

1985 m., tais pačiais metais prezidentas Ronaldas Reiganas paragino labiau prižiūrėti pagalbos teikimą į Afganistaną, buvo atidaryta sąskaita trijų generolo Khano sūnų vardu. (Generolas niekada nebuvo apkaltintas pagalbos pinigų vagyste.) Po daugelio metų sąskaitoje buvo 3,7 mln. dolerių, rodo nutekinti įrašai.

 

Du generolo sūnūs Akbaras ir Haroonas Khanas neatsakė į prašymus pakomentuoti ataskaitų teikimo projektą. Tekstinėje žinutėje trečiasis sūnus Ghazi Khan pavadino informaciją apie sąskaitas „neteisinga“ ir pridūrė: „Turinys yra spėliojamas“.

 

2003-iaisiais, tais metais, kai JAV įsiveržė į Iraką, siekdamos nuversti Saddamą Husseiną, Jordanijos žvalgybos agentūros vadovas Saadas Kheiras atidarė sąskaitą, kurioje galiausiai bus 21,6 mln. dolerių.

 

Sąskaita buvo uždaryta po J. Kheiro mirties 2009 m.

 

Pono Mubarako ilgamečio ir žiauraus šnipų vado Omaro Suleimano šeima taip pat turėjo paskyrą. P. Suleiman mirė 2012 m. Pranešimo projekto pastangos pasiekti jo šeimą buvo nesėkmingos.

 

Nutekintus įrašus Vokietijos „Süddeutsche Zeitung“ daugiau, nei prieš metus pateikė nenustatytas informatorius. 

 

Iš dešimčių naujienų organizacijų, bendradarbiaujančių projekte, nė viena nebuvo įsikūrusi Šveicarijoje, kur 2015 m. įstatymas apribojo galimybę rašyti straipsnius pagal vidinius banko duomenis.

 

Pranešėjas pranešime žiniasklaidos konsorciumui teigė, kad Šveicarijos bankų paslapties įstatymai yra „amoralūs“.

 

„Pretekstas apsaugoti finansinį privatumą yra tik figos lapas, dengiantis gėdingą Šveicarijos bankų, kaip mokesčių vengėjų bendradarbių, vaidmenį“, – sakė pranešėjas."

 

Vast Leak Exposes How Credit Suisse Served Strongmen and Spies

"Leaked data on more than 18,000 accounts shows that the Swiss bank missed or ignored red flags.

The client rosters of Swiss banks are among the world’s most closely guarded secrets, protecting the identities of some of the planet’s richest people and clues into how they accumulated their fortunes.

Now, an extraordinary leak of data from Credit Suisse, one of the world’s most iconic banks, is exposing how the bank held hundreds of millions of dollars for heads of state, intelligence officials, sanctioned businessmen and human rights abusers, among many others.

A self-described whistle-blower leaked data on more than 18,000 bank accounts, collectively holding more than $100 billion, to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper shared the data with a nonprofit journalism group, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and 46 other news organizations around the world, including The New York Times.

The data covers accounts that were open from the 1940s until well into the 2010s but not the bank’s current operations.

Among the people listed as holding amounts worth millions of dollars in Credit Suisse accounts were King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two sons of the former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. Other account holders included sons of a Pakistani intelligence chief who helped funnel billions of dollars from the United States and other countries to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Venezuelan officials ensnared in a long-running corruption scandal.

The leak shows that Credit Suisse opened accounts for and continued to serve not only the ultrawealthy but also people whose problematic backgrounds would have been obvious to anyone who ran their names through a search engine.

Swiss banks have long faced legal prohibitions on taking money linked to criminal activity, said Daniel Thelesklaf, the former head of Switzerland’s anti-money laundering agency. But, he said, the law generally hasn’t been enforced.

Candice Sun, a spokeswoman for the bank, said in a statement that “Credit Suisse strongly rejects the allegations and inferences about the bank’s purported business practices.” She said many of the accounts in the leak date back decades to “a time where laws, practices and expectations of financial institutions were very different from where they are now.”

Ms. Sun said that while Credit Suisse can’t comment on specific clients, many of the accounts identified in the leaked database have already been closed. “Of the remaining active accounts, we are comfortable that appropriate due diligence, reviews and other control related steps were taken, including pending account closures,” she said.

Ms. Sun added that the leak appears to be part of “a concerted effort to discredit the bank and the Swiss financial marketplace, which has undergone significant changes over the last several years.”

The leak follows the so-called Panama Papers in 2016, the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Pandora Papers last year. They all shed light on the secretive workings of banks, law firms and offshore financial-services providers that allow wealthy people and institutions — including those accused of crimes — to move huge sums of money, largely outside the purview of tax collectors or law enforcement.

The new disclosures are likely to intensify legal and political scrutiny of the Swiss banking industry and, in particular, Credit Suisse. The bank is already reeling from the abrupt ousters of its two top executives.

With its ironclad bank-secrecy laws, Switzerland has long been a haven for people who are looking to hide money. In the past decade, that has made the country’s largest banks — especially its two giants, Credit Suisse and UBS — a target for the authorities in the United States and elsewhere who are trying to crack down on tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes.

In 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to conspiring to help Americans file false tax returns and agreed to pay fines, penalties and restitution totaling $2.6 billion.

Three years later, the bank paid the Justice Department $5.3 billion to settle allegations about its marketing of mortgage-backed securities. Last fall, it agreed to pay $475 million to U.S. and British authorities to resolve an investigation into a kickback and bribery scheme in Mozambique. And this month, a trial got underway in Switzerland in which Credit Suisse is accused of allowing drug traffickers to launder millions of euros through the bank.

The Justice Department and the Senate Finance Committee are also looking into whether U.S. citizens continue to hold undeclared accounts at the bank.

Several former Credit Suisse employees told federal prosecutors late last year that the bank continued to hide hundreds of millions of dollars for clients long after its 2014 guilty plea, according to a whistle-blower lawsuit filed last year by a former bank official and a lawyer for other former employees. (The suit was dismissed after the Justice Department said it “threatens to interfere with ongoing discussions with Credit Suisse” about dealing with Swiss bank accounts held by U.S. citizens.)

The media consortium has nicknamed the latest leak “Suisse Secrets.” Of the more than 18,000 bank accounts involved, roughly 100 U.S. citizens held accounts, but none are public figures.

Among the biggest revelations is that Credit Suisse continued to do business with customers even after bank officials flagged suspicious activity involving their finances.

One account holder was Venezuela’s former vice minister of energy, Nervis Villalobos.

Employees in Credit Suisse’s compliance department had reason to be wary of doing business with him. The bank had a 2008 report by an outside due-diligence firm detailing corruption allegations involving Mr. Villalobos and Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, according to a Spanish police report obtained by the media consortium. (The Times reviewed the report.)

Credit Suisse nonetheless opened an account for him in 2011, the leaked bank data shows. The account, which was closed in 2013, held as much as $10 million.

Lawyers for Mr. Villalobos, who was criminally charged by the Justice Department in 2017, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

All told, there were 25 Credit Suisse accounts, containing a total of about $270 million, that belonged to people accused of being involved in a wide-ranging conspiracy surrounding Venezuela’s oil company. The accounts remained open after the scandal started to become public, but were closed by the time criminal charges were filed.

The bank also kept accounts open for a Zimbabwean businessman who was sanctioned by U.S. and European authorities for his ties to the government of the country’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe. The accounts stayed open for several months after the sanctions were imposed.

The leaked bank information included many accounts linked to government officials across the Middle East and beyond. The data raises questions about how public officials and their relatives accumulated vast fortunes in a region rife with corruption.

The sons of former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, held a total of six accounts at various points, including one in 2003 that was worth $196 million.

In a statement to The New York Times, the Mubaraks’ lawyers declined to comment about specific accounts but said the suggestion that any of the Mubaraks’ assets had been “tainted by any illegality or a result of any favoritism or use of influence” would be “both unfounded and defamatory.”

Any assets they held, the statement said, were from their “successful professional business activities.”

King Abdullah II of Jordan, one of the few officials in the leaks who remains in power, had six accounts, including one whose balance exceeded $224 million.

Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court said in a statement that there had been no “unlawful or improper conduct” in relation to the bank accounts. They held portions of the king’s private wealth, which was used for personal expenses, royal projects to help Jordanians and the maintenance of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, of which he is the custodian.

Senior intelligence officials and their offspring from several countries that cooperated with the United States in the war on terrorism also had money stashed at Credit Suisse.

As the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency, General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan helped funnel billions of dollars in cash and other aid from the United States and other countries to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to support their fight against the Soviet Union.

In 1985, the same year President Ronald Reagan called for more oversight of the aid going into Afghanistan, an account was opened in the name of three of General Khan’s sons. (The general never faced charges of stealing aid money.) Years later, the account would grow to hold $3.7 million, the leaked records show.

Two of the general’s sons, Akbar and Haroon Khan, did not respond to requests for comment from the reporting project. In a text message, a third son, Ghazi Khan, called information about the accounts “not correct,” adding, “The content is conjectural.”

In 2003, the year that the United States invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, Saad Kheir, the head of Jordan’s intelligence agency, opened an account that would eventually hold $21.6 million.

The account was closed after Mr. Kheir’s death in 2009.

The family of Mr. Mubarak’s long-serving and brutal spymaster, Omar Suleiman, had an account, too. Mr. Suleiman died in 2012. Efforts by the reporting project to reach his family were unsuccessful.

The leaked records were provided to Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung more than a year ago by an unidentified whistle-blower. Of the dozens of news organizations collaborating on the project, none were based in Switzerland, where a 2015 law restricted journalists from writing articles based on internal bank data.

The whistle-blower said in a statement to the media consortium that Swiss bank-secrecy laws were “immoral.”

“The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders,” the whistle-blower said."