Swiss federal prosecutors

have launched a criminal probe targeting the perpetrators of a 2022 leak of information on thousands of Credit Suisse accounts, they said on Friday, adding that the alleged offenses were the violation of banking secrecy laws, damage caused to Credit Suisse and making confidential business information available to foreign organizations or their agents.

• A step back: Last February, more than 18,000 accounts —including human rights abusers, fraudsters, and businessmen subject to sanctions— held from the 1940s to the 2010s were leaked by an unknown person or organization, plunging Switzerland's biggest bank into a dirty money scandal.