May 26, 2026
The Trump administration is being urged to open an investigation into the Swiss bank UBS for allegedly obstructing U.S. congressional inquiries related to accounts linked to the Nazi regime during World War II.
According to the New York Post, Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter on May 19 to Ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun — the U.S. State Department official for combating antisemitism — calling UBS's actions a “stain on history.”
Grassley stated that his investigation focuses on Nazi-linked accounts at Credit Suisse, which UBS acquired in 2023.
He accused UBS of obstructing efforts to clarify the fate of looted Jewish assets, stolen artworks, and financial networks that supported SS officers and helped many Nazis flee to Argentina after World War II.
In the letter, Grassley wrote that investigations in the 1990s “still did not bring full justice to Jewish people and Holocaust victims.”
He also warned that UBS is benefiting from the U.S. financial system while “ignoring the U.S. Congress, the American people, and Holocaust victims.”
According to the article, UBS was approved for a national banking license by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in March this year, despite ongoing related investigations.
The new investigation emerged after Neil Barofsky — the independent investigator tasked with reviewing Nazi-linked accounts — revealed that approximately 890 accounts could be connected to Adolf Hitler's war machine.
In his testimony to the Senate in April, Barofsky stated that about 23,000 pages of documents related to Third Reich finances were still being redacted or withheld by UBS. Subsequently, the number of missing documents increased to approximately 27,400 pages.
Barofsky also accused UBS of making “false and misleading statements” regarding 127 accounts previously identified as containing assets forcibly transferred from Jewish individuals to Nazi-linked bank clients.
He further stated that the investigative team had been prevented from pursuing leads related to networks that helped Nazi members escape to Latin America after the war.
During a February hearing, Barofsky revealed that he was dismissed between 2022 and 2023 for refusing to “conceal the truth” about the connection between UBS's predecessor banks and the Nazis.
In response, UBS asserted that the bank has provided approximately 16.5 million pages of documents for the investigation and withheld “less than 0.1%” of records to protect attorney-client privilege.
UBS also stated that it has spent over $250 million since 2021 to voluntarily review historical Nazi-linked accounts.
