Credit Suisse bank pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit fraudulent financial transfer, paying $475 million in a settlement with the United States in connection with Mozambique's hidden debt scandal.

According to the Bloomberg financial information agency, the European unit of Credit Suisse has pleaded guilty for its role in the scandal of raising a loan that diverted funds from Mozambique's public treasury and threw the country into an economic and financial crisis.

Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud during a hearing in a courtroom in Brooklyn, New York, on Tuesday, the same day that the Swiss bank's headquarters agreed with the US Justice Department to a three-year deferral of the indictment.

Credit Suisse will thus pay about $475 million, in the settlement made yesterday with financial judicial authorities in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, according to Bloomberg, which cites sources close to the case.

Details of the settlement are expected to be released in the coming days, adds the financial news agency, which quotes the bank's lawyer as confirming that the financial institution has pleaded guilty.

The bank "knowingly and willfully agreed to participate in a scheme to violate the statute on fraudulent international money transfer by participating in a scheme to obtain money through false and fraudulent statements."

"Certain employees and agents committed acts, including payments that went through the Eastern District of New York," where the case began trial in 2018, Alan Reifenberg said.

In April 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mozambique had issued sovereign guarantees on loans worth about $2.2 billion, above what had been disclosed until then, and outside of international institutions and national authorities.

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the donor community then suspended financial aid to the country, which eventually defaulted on its payments on the $727.5 million in Ematum sovereign bonds in February of the following year.

This financial crisis resulted in a series of lawsuits against Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB, launched by the Attorney General's Office, but the banks also put the country in the dock for non-payment, arguing that the destination and application of the money lent was not their responsibility.

In the context of the hidden debts, the Mozambican justice system accuses 19 defendants in the main case of having associated in a "gang" and robbed the Mozambican State of $2.7 billion - a figure that is higher than the $2.2 million so far known in the case - raised from international banks through guarantees provided by the government.

The hidden debts were contracted between 2013 and 2014 from the British subsidiaries of investment banks Credit Suisse and VTB by the Mozambican state-owned companies Proindicus, Ematum and MAM.

The loans were secretly guaranteed by the Frelimo Government, led by the President of the Republic at the time, Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of the parliament or the Administrative Court.

Lusa Agency