Former UBS bank executive Raoul Weil was the mastermind of the Swiss bank's illegal offshore operations that helped thousands of Americans evade taxes, prosecutors said at the start of his federal trial on Tuesday. Weil, 54, was the third-highest ranked executive at the Zurich-based wealth management firm and was charged by U.S. authorities in 2008 of concealing up to $20 billion in U.S. taxpayers' assets in secret offshore accounts. "You'll hear evidence that problems with this U.S. business were brought to Weil's attention again, and again, and again, year after year," Mark Daly of the Justice Department's tax division told jurors at the trial in South Florida. "He had the power to shut down this business." If convicted, Weil faces up to five years in prison for conspiracy to commit tax fraud. Weil's attorneys said the offshore private banking business was only a tiny fraction of his responsibilities overseeing UBS wealth management's of more than $2 trillion in assets. This
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