Ex-Julius Baer wealth manager arrested in Miami in PDVSA affair
MIAMI - A private banker who until last month was one of Julius Baer Group Ltd.’s wealth managers for Venezuela has been arrested for his alleged role in a billion-dollar scheme to launder funds from the nation’s state oil company PDVSA.
Swiss financial regulator Finma opened an enforcement proceeding against Julius Baer, Swiss newspaper NZZ reported in April. Finma said it’s aware of the arrest and is in contact with the bank. It also confirmed it has a number of enforcement proceedings related to money laundering in South America under way and some of them are tied to PDVSA. It declined to name the targets of its probes.
Krull, 44, was arrested on Tuesday night in Miami and made an initial court appearance on Wednesday. He is scheduled to have a pretrial detention hearing on July 30, and a preliminary hearing on Aug. 8. Oscar Rodriguez, his Miami lawyer, declined to comment, saying it was too early in the proceedings.
The German banker was a senior relationship manager at Julius Baer based in Panama at the time of the alleged money laundering. Just weeks ago Julius Baer said some bankers had left amid a strategic realignment of Baer’s Latin American unit. The exits from Switzerland’s third-biggest wealth manager included Krull, Bloomberg reported.
Geneva-based rival Gonet & Cie has since announced that it hired Krull. Pascal Pupet, a spokesman for the bank said Krull has not joined Gonet yet and was due to do so at the end of the year.