Credit Suisse official said to face court appearance in Florida

A Credit Suisse banker, reportedly suspected of fraud related to the bank’s offshore accounts, was being moved to Florida for a court appearance after his arrest in New York, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the case.

The banker, Christos Bagios, was being transferred to Fort Lauderdale, where several high-profile tax evasion cases have been tried, including those involving the government’s tax fraud allegations against UBS.

The New York Times reported Monday that Bagios, a Greek citizen, had been charged with conspiracy and fraud in connection with Credit Suisse’s work in offshore accounts. The law enforcement source had no details about charges against Bagios.

Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Bagios previously worked for UBS, according to that bank’s website.

The United States has been looking for other banks that may be helping Americans evade taxes abroad after UBS paid $780 million and agreed to hand over nearly 5,000 account names to the U.S. government to settle tax evasion charges.

A UBS representative said the bank was unaware of any new probe of the bank.

“For UBS, the U.S. cross-border matter has been definitively resolved,” the UBS representative said.

The Swiss finance ministry also declined to comment.

Bagios is the head of Credit Suisse’s Relationship Management West Coast group, a private banking unit that is part of Credit Suisse Private Advisors, according to the bank’s website.

U.S. tax authorities have been culling through data from nearly thousands of U.S. clients that came forward as part of a tax amnesty program that ended in 2009.

The Internal Revenue Service earlier this month started a new amnesty program to entice tax cheats to come forward.