Switzerland announces arrest in widening Alstom graft probe

Swiss police arrested a former manager of French engineering giant Alstom and raided offices of the group in Switzerland in a widening corruption and money-laundering probe, prosecutors said Friday. Judicial police are investigating allegations including corruption and money-laundering "against a former high-level compliance manager of Alstom," the public prosecutor's office said in a statement, without naming the suspect. In a raid involving more than 50 Swiss and French police and magistrates, it said police searched several premises belonging to the group in Switzerland, where the French company employs 5,000 people. Swiss authorities now suspect that "payments were made, for corrupt ends, by an intermediary of Alstom Prom AG located in Baden," Switzerland, the statement said. It is suspected "these sums were transferred by other companies of the Alstom group to public servants or officials of various countries in cases determining the awarding of contracts." It added that "findings in the current investigation suggest that the case may be broadened" and the probe was looking at other suspects in the company. Contacted in Paris, Alstom said in reaction to the report simply that "the group is cooperating fully with the judicial authorities in this matter." Alstom is the target of a wide-ranging investigation by French and Swiss authorities over suspected bribes worth tens of millions of euros (dollars) to secure tenders in Asia and South America between 1995 and 2003. The Swiss prosecutor said the latest raids were not linked to other Alstom-related proceedings such as a bribery case against a Swiss national whom press reports have named as Oskar Holenweger, former head of the Zurich bank Tempus Privatbank. In June French judges charged a former consultant for Alstom over links to suspected bribes paid for lucrative contracts. The company registered as a civil plaintiff in that case, claiming it may have suffered from embezzlement. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Swiss authorities found evidence Alstom paid some 20 million euros (31 million dollars) via "shell companies" to marketing people in Singapore, Indonesia, Venezuela and Brazil. Alstom is suspected of paying 6.8 million dollars to help win a 45-million-dollar contract for the Sao Paolo subway and suspected bribes linked to a Brazilian energy plant. Brazilian authorities announced in May they were investigating Alstom for suspected tax avoidance and money laundering. Alstom is a leading French industrial group which builds power stations and the TGV high-speed train. It was saved from bankruptcy in 2004 by state intervention orchestrated by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then finance minister.