UBS accused of blocking probe into Nazi thefts from Holocaust victims

WASHINGTON — UBS has been accused of withholding tens of thousands of records about former subsidiary Credit Suisse’s shocking Nazi ties — including involving the forced transfer of assets owned by murdered Jews.

Around 23,000 documents are still being “redacted or withheld” from a lawyer conducting an independent investigation into the Nazi-linked accounts at the now-defunct Credit Suisse, according to new testimony submitted to Congress on Monday.

The ombudsman, Neil Barofsky, said in supplemental written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he also has yet to see another 1 million pages under review by UBS lawyers for potentially privileged information.

The delay of the probe is complicating a related $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust victims.

Barofsky, along with forensic research firm AlixPartners, has allegedly been blocked from probing 127 instances of possible “looting of Jewish assets” by “Nazi-affiliated German bank clients.”

He and the research company also have allegedly been prevented from pursuing “credible leads” into the Swiss bank’s links to the SS and the “ratlines” that helped the Nazis flee to Latin America after World War II.

“I’m concerned UBS’s recent heavy-handed approach to this investigation may prevent important historical facts from coming to light,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement Monday.

“These new details call into question UBS’s candor to the committee and its commitment to a thorough investigation.”

At a Feb. 3 Senate hearing, UBS executives publicly testified that “fewer than 150 documents” out of 16.5 million have yet to be handed over to the ombudsman and stated the same in a related federal court hearing the following month.

But the bank privately acknowledged to holding onto thousands more documents in emails to Barofsky’s team.

Barofsky testified that some documents marked as a single document are in fact larger productions containing “over 1,000 pages each.”

Grassley fired off letters to UBS general counsel Barbara Levi and President UBS Americas Robert Karofsky citing “numerous unanswered questions” as a part of his committee’s inquiry and demanding a response to the ombudsman’s follow-up written testimony by April 24.

Barofsky, who was fired and then rehired under pressure from Congress as an independent monitor to oversee Credit Suisse’s review of its Nazi-linked accounts, revealed findings from his internal probe in February that showed 890 accounts with potential ties to dictator Adolf Hitler’s war efforts.

UBS acquired rival bank Credit Suisse as part of a more than $3 billion emergency takeover in March 2023, forcing it to take on terms of a settlement reached between the latter bank and Holocaust victims in the 1990s.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in a 2020 report first disclosed as many as 12,000 Nazis who fled to Argentina were linked to accounts at a Credit Suisse predecessor — and its associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, also testified before the Senate Judiciary panel in February.

“Previous efforts to investigate Swiss banks’ role were significant, but they were incomplete,” Cooper told the judiciary panel members.

“What was largely left untouched were Nazi-linked accounts, shell corporations and financial networks that helped Nazis safeguard their criminal proceeds and escape justice.”

Barofsky is expected to conclude his probe by the end of this year but noted in his testimony filed Monday with the committee that UBS set a “self-imposed deadline” of July 31, 2026, for all of its document productions, complicating his efforts.

UBS reps have previously referred to documents not disclosed to Barofsky as “a limited set of files and communications protected by attorney-client privilege, which relate to the 1990s Holocaust class-action litigation and the 1999 Settlement Agreement.”

“The bank’s historic voluntary review focuses on the World War II-era activities, not the litigation that resulted in the 1999 Settlement Agreement,” the reps have said.

A UBS rep told The Post in a statement Monday, “UBS has shown unwavering commitment to this historical review, underpinned by substantial financial resources and continuous engagement.

“The bank has been and will continue to be transparent with the Committee and shares its objective to shed light on the historical record by delivering a final report by year end.”