UBS helped set up offshore firm for wife, daughter of corrupt railways official, database shows
Swiss bank helped set up secretive offshore company for wife and daughter of convicted railways ministry official, says US group
Swiss bank UBS is at the centre of embarrassing revelations that it helped to set up a secretive offshore firm for the wife and daughter of a former senior Chinese official who has since been convicted of corruption.
Zhang Shuguang, a former deputy chief engineer of the disbanded railways ministry, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in September last year to taking more than 47 million yuan (HK$60 million) in bribes between 2000 and 2011 to help companies win rail contracts.
He was the right-hand man of former railways minister Liu Zhijun, who was given a suspended death sentence for corruption in July.
Zhang's wife, Wang Xing, and daughter, Zhang Xixi, were revealed recently to be shareholders of a British Virgin Islands (BVI) company named East Asia Group Trading, according to the database of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The US-based group has been releasing information over the past year on the secret accounts of high-profile and well-connected people, including several other mainlanders.
In the ICIJ database, UBS is named as a master client of East Asia Group, meaning an intermediary that helps clients set up offshore entities.