Following Singapore's ban on Falcon Private Bank this week, it was the turn of the Swiss authorities to turn fire on the firm that is embroiled in a widening scandal about Malaysian dirty money.

Swiss legal authorities joined in action against Falcon Private Bank this week, opening criminal proceedings against the Zurich-headquartered lender regarding transactions connected to Malaysian state fund 1MDB.

The announcement yesterday from the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland, based in Berne, follows this week’s move by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to revoke Falcon’s banking licence in Singapore due to discovery of serious lapses in anti-money laundering controls. The action by MAS comes just over four months after it took similar action against BSI in Singapore, part of Switzerland-based BSI, for similar shortcomings.

1MDB is accused of allowing prominent figures, including Malaysia’s prime minister, to use its funds to finance personal spending. The corruption scandal has already seen MAS censure and fine a number of banks, while authorities in Switzerland said they had frozen bank accounts several months ago. Legal authorities in Luxembourg and the US are also involved.

“The OAG suspects deficiencies in the internal organisation of Falcon Private Bank Ltd. It is believe that due to these deficiencies, the bank was unable to prevent the commission of the offences currently under investigation in the criminal proceedings relating to 1MDB,” the Swiss legal body said in a statement.

The OAG said Swiss law allows prosecution of a legal entity suspected of “not taking all the reasonable organisational measures that are required to prevent natural persons from committing offences, in particular money laundering or corruption offences.”

As with the case of criminal proceedings brought against BSI Bank SA on 23 May, the opening of proceedings against Falcon is “based on the information revealed by investigations relating to 1MDB and on issues raised in the enforcement decision made by FINMA [the Swiss regulator] from early October 2016”, the OAG added.