Credit Suisse is finding it difficult to avoid bad publicity at the moment. Earlier this week, it was reported that federal police in Brazil...

Credit Suisse is finding it difficult to avoid bad publicity at the moment. Earlier this week, it was reported that federal police in Brazil had confiscated the passports of six officials, four Swiss nationals and two Brazilians, with the bank, pending an investigation into alleged tax evasion and money laundering.

Yesterday, Japanese prosecutors appealed against a district court ruling that acquitted a Japanese man formerly employed by Credit Suisse in Hong Kong of money-laundering on behalf of a gangster who operated a loan-sharking network affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest underworld syndicate

The Tokyo District Court had acquitted Atsushi Doden last week of charges of laundering around Y9.4 billion ($80 million) saying that there were reasonable grounds for doubting he knew the money entrusted to him was profits from criminal activities.

Prosecutors had demanded three years in prison and a Y3 million yen fine, for the ex-Credit Suisse man, saying that he had played an indispensable part in illegal lending.