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Switzerland: Undercover-Agent

01 March 1993

A 46 years old Swiss restaurant keeper, let us call him Albert, was found guilty of selling and dealing eight killogrammes of cocaine and sentenced to 6 years of prison on 25 March 1993 in Winterthur (city close to Zurich) Switzerland. In Konstanz a German city close to the Swiss border where Albert often spent the weekends playing in the casinos he met Sergio in February 1992. Albert, in need of money, offered Sergio 11 kg of cocaine, not knowing that Sergio was working for the German criminal police. However, he could not organise the promised cocaine himself and had to contact other people. Another meeting with Sergio was arranged again in Konstanz. This time Sergio was accompanied by Michael, an undercover agent of the German State police Baden-Wurttemberg, but presented to Albert as a solvent drug-dealer. On 21 May 1992 Michael came to Winterthur with 300,000 Deutschmarks 3.5 kilogramme of cocaine from Albert and his suppliers. The state police of Zurich were there too and arrested them all,

There is no law in Switzerland covering undercover-agents and no legal "arrangement" with other countries to allow them direct investigation inside Switzerland. However the public prosecutor said that the "employment" of undercover-agents is allowable without any special law as long as the agent does not function as an "agent provocateur". Albert, so says the prosecutor, offered the drugs, was not urged to it. But Albert and his lawyer stated that Sergio did pressure Albert to deliver cocaine and they wanted to call Sergio as a witness. The German criminal police intervened Sergio could only be questioned by Albert's lawyer when out of the court by a video link.