New Delhi:
Three days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said that Indians are the largest depositors in Swiss banks, Switzerland today contradicted that stand, calling it "uncorroborated".
CBI Director Ambar Pratap Singh had, on Monday, said that Indians had stashed away an estimated 500 billion dollars in black money in foreign banks. The maximum outflow of illegal funds was to tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and British Virgin Islands, he had said.
But the Swiss Embassy today, in an unusual step, issued a statement saying, "It wishes to make a clarification in view of unsubstantiated media reports that have been recently published about Switzerland and Swiss Banks."
But, the release, which did not mention the CBI chief's statement, said that Switzerland is not a tax haven.
"There have been several speculations about the amount of wealth held by Indians in Swiss Banks...Such estimates and statistics lack of evidence and are uncorroborated," the statement said.
While there have been various estimates of Indian black money stashed abroad, the statement by the CBI Director was significant in that, for the first time someone in authority in the country had come out with an estimate.