Meet the pizza-loving diplomat behind Antigua News’s big Credit Suisse scoop

A shocking twist in the saga of Credit Suisse’s $17 billion additional Tier 1 writedown hit headlines this week, when MainFT revealed the following:

Credit Suisse directly disputed the Swiss financial regulator’s write-down of $17bn of its Additional Tier 1 bonds in a private letter aimed at reducing employee bonuses linked to the debt.

We say “sort-of” because the FT was the first major news organization to write about the revelation contained in a second decree Switzerland’s FINMA issued ordering Credit Suisse to void its AT1 bonds, in fact Another lesser-known media organization got the scoop,

The second decree was published online in full last week by Antigua News, a local news outlet. The Financial Times separately obtained a copy of the decree and verified its authenticity with several people with direct knowledge of the situation.

If you are not familiar with Antigua News, you are not alone.

The barely two-year-old website primarily traffics in and out of the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, with more recent stories Robbery At local takeaway joint Bread King and the suspension of a high-profile criminal trial due to the courtroom “fungal infection”,

Even by the standards of a local news start-up, Antigua News twitter presence was minimal, with only 15 followers before the FT’s story on Monday:

Antigua? we hardly know

Needless to say, obscure Caribbean websites don’t usually break the big European banking stories.

For those who haven’t followed the intricacies of the fallout from Credit Suisse’s shotgun wedding to UBS, earlier this month a group of AT1 bondholders banded together to sue FINMA, which is a long Has won an early victory in what is expected to be a court battle.

Distressed investors forced the Swiss financial regulator to hand over two hitherto secret documents: FINMA’s decree ordering Credit Suisse to liquidate AT1 bonds and a second decree relating to staff bonuses that were linked to the loan.

While aspects of the first decree were soon leaked to the Swiss press, the world’s media remembered that FINMA had also issued a second decree before Antigua News arrived on the scene.

The content of this second decree was even more explosive. The document shows that Credit Suisse challenged FINMA’s interpretation of the AT1 contracts, arguing that the conditions allowing the writedown had not been met. It represents a coup for investors battling to prove that FINMA acted improperly.

On May 15, hours after the retractions of the Swiss financial blog Inside Paradeplatz, a Article Containing some photographed extracts from copies of the first decree, Antigua News quietly published digital versions of both the first and second decrees. in their entirety. It even watermarked them in the clear:

FT Alphaville tries to find out how this little-known Antiguan website grabbed the Swiss smoking gun and scandalized the world’s financial press.

The answer led us to a pizza-loving lawyer and ambassador whose notable past clients include Vladimir Putin’s former son-in-law.

Caribbean websurfing destination

Posted by Antigua News Two Material On to the woes of Credit Suisse in March, when the 167-year-old lender fell into the arms of longtime rival UBS. These earlier stories had at least one byline (“Tata”), but lacked the sourcing prowess of later marmalade-dropper dispatches.

While the owner of the antigua.news domain used a privacy protection service, online records also suggested a Swiss connection:

the website itself Is . , , Not user friendly. Vast stretches of screen space are covered by large invisible link frames, which make right-clicking impossible.

Some gentle fiddling allowed Alphaville to circumvent these constraints and access the raw images of the FINMA decrees. Filenames like “FITMA 1.pdf.jpg” not only suggested a bit of lethargy stemming from the eagerness to get material online (we can relate), but also that the poster had a digital version of the document .

As much as we love a spot of online archeology, at this point we decided it would be more efficient to hit the phone.

Unexpected object in bagholding area

A Swiss lawyer, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to Spain, and a budding media mogul walk into a bar.

His name is Dario Item.

The item told FTAV, “This is my article, I wrote the article on Antigua News.” “I also (own) Antigua News. And I’m also a Swiss lawyer. , , I am defending some investors and that is why I have this information.

We happened upon the person behind the scoop on the cold calling phone numbers associated with Antigua News (this was more successful than our earlier exchange with a slightly confused advertising sales rep who hadn’t heard of Credit Suisse , but dutifully promised to go to our inquiries all the same).

The item, 50, is not only the Antiguan ambassador to Spain, but also the tiny European principalities of Monaco and Liechtenstein, and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. His embassy owns and operates Antigua News. He is also a lawyer based in Lugano, Switzerland, representing undisclosed investors holding Credit Suisse AT1s that were liquidated during the sale to UBS.

“You understand this is a big scandal in Switzerland,” he told us. “We are all very upset because we sincerely believe that there was no legal basis for writing off the AT1s.”

(Item declined to name the investors he is representing, citing “attorney-client privilege.”)

in possession of both the decree and Antigua News (which they called the “official channel” Embassy of Antigua and Barbuda in Madrid”), the item decided to remove the middleman: he effectively supplied the documents himself, with an explanation of their importance, to a news website controlled through his diplomatic post.

His account of the big scoop was confirmed by the unnamed journalist who oversees Antigua News’ WhatsApp group, who also suggested that his pragmatic boss has the same direct editorial philosophy as espoused by the London Evening Standard Is. lord lebedev,

(The anonymous journalist also saw our sarcastic tweet about Antigua News’ modest number of Twitter followers, happily flagged that their Facebook account Far more popular because “the islanders hardly use Twitter”. fair point!)

The item explained that he was the man for the job when it came to writing about the intricacies of Credit Suisse’s legal case involving AT1 because it is “a very sensitive matter.”

He said, “I have the ability to write such an article.” “And I decided to do it because I believe it is very important.”

It’s certainly a novel approach to journalism. The FT’s other sources close to the matter have been more circumspect about sharing documents from the ongoing trial. Item has no such property.

“These documents are not secret at all,” he told us, adding that while the Swiss court forced FINMA to disclose the decree to bondholders, there was “no restriction” on publishing them. “It’s very, very important. People want to know. With full details.

Mr worldwide

The one minute 31 second clip, titled “dario item”, is one of three videos on the YouTube channel “Dario Items”. The other two are called “Dario’s Item” and “Dario’s Item”.

It shows Felipe VI of Spain standing in the Antechamber of Charles III, part of the royal palace in Madrid. Item enters through a distant door, and formally presents his credentials to Felipe.

there is also a view Documented on the item’s Instagramwhere he mainly posts beach photos and has over 800,000 followers in the north.

These are just a few examples of the item’s vast web presence, which includes Antigua News as well as a personal website, another personal website, another personal websiteA personal press websiteone more personal press websiteand a medium profile, here he is Boosting Blockchain Regulation in Antigua and Barbuda, and here it is Scottish local press mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II, here he is Writing about Money Laundering in Switzerland,

The item also comes up repeatedly in connection with Antigua’s “nomad digital residency” program, which allows foreigners to live and work away from Antigua and Barbuda for up to two years.

Last summer, the item announced that the plan was to “carefully reopen(ed)” for “non-approved Russians and Belarusians” subject to “strict criteria”. We also noticed that Russian is one of the many language options Numerous item websites,

The ambassador confirmed to us that their Russian websites were their way of promoting Antigua’s citizenship by investment program in the country and surrounding region. He said “unfortunately” the window for Russian and Belarusian applicants closed again just a month after his big announcement.

Putin-immediate customer

Nearby are other Russia related items.

In 2020, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a consortium of investigative journalists, named object In connection with a network of offshore companies owned by Kirill Shamalov, the former son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It dubbed the item “the main keeper of Shamalov’s offshore secrets”.

The item labeled this claim “really ridiculous”, noting that he was one of several attorneys working for Shamalov.

“And every lawyer is a keeper of secrets,” he told us. “By the way, the case was related to a Swiss bank and to consider Switzerland as (an) offshore country is extremely rediculous. I was just a lawyer, but that was five years ago.

This isn’t the only Putin-adjacent story we’ve found.

This 2014 Reuters report Included were documents from a company called Media Investments, which infamously owned a Black Sea-adjacent property dubbed the “Putin Palace”. document The name “Dario item of Lugano, Switzerland as a representative of Dr. Medea”. Reuters reported that the company’s shareholder was Lanfranco Cirillo, an Italian architect best known for designing the mansion allegedly built for the enjoyment of the Russian president.

The item stated that his work for Cirillo was “in the past” and claimed that client-attorney privilege again prevented him from discussing details.

He then had an encounter with financial officials in Labuan, a federal territory of Malaysia, which in 2019 struck off Item as director of two financial services firms. As a result of the regulatory approval, Antigua also canceled Banking license of one of his companies. The Malaysian regulator later overturned the individual ban against the item after a judicial review.

“I was – you can believe me or not – I was the victim of a fraud,” the item said. “I won in court and there is nothing left in that country (Malaysia). All measures against me have been withdrawn and it is public.”

crusted consultant

We thought this story was quite weird and wonderful. Then we found Pizza Forum.

Among his other interests, owning the item a Pizza lovers messaging board, La Varese, where he posts as an admin under the name Napoli72. One of the other pizza enthusiasts even affectionately refers to him as “Zio Dario” (“Uncle Dario”).

Gio Dario has posted 4,635 times. Here is his signature (Translated by Google):

“It’s my passion. It’s my passion. Absolutely. It’s absolutely my passion. I love cooking. I love cooking,” Item told FTAV.

He added: “And I have a pizza oven in all my houses in Antigua too. To be honest, I’m a little crazy.”

The commitment to making high quality homemade pizza doesn’t seem like an item available to a man of means. But then he began detailing the delicate logistics involved.

“You can’t imagine how difficult it was to bring an oven from Naples,” the item continued with a chuckle, explaining how they had to use a crane to install the traditional forno, “If you saw what I did here, you could certainly conclude that I am insane.”

While the FTAV won’t go that far, it certainly exemplifies the same can-do approach that prompted the international lawyer and diplomat to take matters into his own hands when the world’s financial press missed the real story on Credit Suisse.