Three Swiss banks have come under fire from the US Justice Department for helping American citizens to evade taxes. On December 15, it was announced that Crédit Agricole, Dreyfus Sons & Co and Banquiers have been charged with a total fine of $130m in order to avoid prosecution.

The three banks reached a settlement with the Justice Department under a programme launched two years ago to disclose activities that have helped US account holders to conceal their assets in Switzerland. As such, the institutions had to each hand over detailed information about individuals under investigation by the IRS.

The three institutions are not alone in receiving penalties from the IRS

According to information published by Reuters, the Zurich-based division of Crédit Agricole – which is due to pay the lion share of $99.2m – has managed over 950 US-related accounts valued at over $1.8bn since 2008. The department concluded that Crédit Agricole had transferred assets for said accounts in ways that concealed their connection to the US. One such example includes enabling US taxpayers to fully deplete bank accounts through repeated cash withdrawals.

Dreyfus Sons & Co and Banquiers on the other hand were found responsible for establishing overseas entities that held funds and concealed the identity of account holders from the IRS. It was also revealed that Dreyfus Sons & Co, which is due to pay $24.2m, stored cash and gold in areas of its vaults that had been purposefully segregated.

“Although some of the gold and cash client base maintained their accounts because of fears related to the collapse of the banking system,” others “show strong indicia of the concealment of assets,” said the agreement, as stated by Bloomberg.

The three institutions are not alone in receiving penalties from the IRS, as 64 other Swiss banks have also been charged this year alone – amounting to a total of $742m. Given the hard-line approach taken by the US Justice Department and the exposure of various techniques taken to conceal US-related accounts, it would seem that the days of Switzerland acting as a tax haven are finally coming to a close.