[ad_1]
A one-time Swiss banking CEO who is on trial for fraud now says that the nearly $220,000 he spent at strip clubs was a legitimate business expense.
Pierin Vincenz, the former head of the bank Raiffeisen Switzerland, who was once honored as “banker of the year,” also claimed in a Swiss court that he spent $760 on dinner with a woman he met on Tinder because he was thinking of hiring her for a real estate job.
Meanwhile, Swiss prosecutors have also alleged that Vincenz ran up a $4,500 hotel bill that included repairs to the room after he and a stripper he was dating at the time got into a “massive” fight that caused significant damage.
Vincenz’s former company also says that the ex-CEO spent $30,000 of company money to take a cooking club trip to Mallorca, a Spanish island, on a private jet, according to Reuters
.
Vincenz is one of seven top bankers and associates on trial in Zurich for alleged enrichment, fraud and mismanagement.
It is alleged that Vincenz used his position to make secret side deals in addition to those made officially between Raiffeisen and other parties between 2006 and 2017.
Prosecutors want the 65-year-old Vincenz and his co-defendants to pay restitution totaling $77 million and serve six years in prison.
All seven who have been charged are denying the allegations.
The trial has attracted intense media scrutiny in Switzerland. The press interest was so great that authorities needed to relocate the trial from a local courthouse in Zurich to a large theater.
[ad_2]