Former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam is pressing charges after blackmail attempts via Instagram, he said in an update on the social media platform.
Thiam, who stepped down from leading Credit Suisse in February 2020, said there has been an “attempt at extortion against me” on Instagram. He added that he had “pressed charges with the relevant authorities” after attempts to “use false identity and blackmail” on the platform.
“It is not the first time in my career or my life that I am being targeted by the dishonest people,” Thiam wrote. “I have recently been able to have two people indicated who attempted to blackmail and extort me in two different geographies.”
Thiam has around 72,000 followers on his verified Instagram account. A spokesperson for Thiam declined to comment further.
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Thiam left Credit Suisse in 2020 amid a scandal at the bank after it had spied on a number of its former employees including UBS wealth management boss Iqbal Khan. Thiam oversaw a period of restructuring at the Swiss bank as it attempted to turn around performance in its investment bank and reduce reliability on its trading functions at the cost of around 6,000 jobs.
Thiam spent around five years at the helm of Credit Suisse, with 20-year veteran Thomas Gottstein succeeding him. The Swiss bank’s ties with disgraced supply chain finance firm Greensill Capital and losses of around $5bn from the collapse of family office Archegos Capital in March 2021 kicked off a series of crises that rocked the bank for two years.
Credit Suisse was acquired by its cross-town rival UBS in a $3.2bn deal on 19 March.
Thiam said that “cybersecurity experts have been advising me and are busy trying to get to the bottom of this”.
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