Swiss banker to Venezuelan kleptocrats becomes star witness

MIAMI (AP) — Matthias Krull pulls up his pant leg and slides a gardening shear on the ankle monitor that for two years has been a constant reminder of his crimes.

With a court order in hand, and a child’s voice echoing from the next room, the former Swiss banker snips the hard plastic — releasing a torrent of emotion as he contemplates his past mistakes and hopes for rebuilding what, until his arrest, had been a charmed life.

“Physically, I got used to it, but psychologically it’s liberating,” Krull said from the living room of his rented home in a leafy Miami suburb. “To be able to wear shorts again is a big thing. I was at my son’s soccer games and everybody was in shorts in 100 degrees. I was in long pants.”

Krull's troubles stem from his time as a banker in Venezuela, a nation that has been plagued by epic corruption in two decades of socialist rule, first under the populist President Hugo Chávez, then his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro. During that time, Krull, who worked for the Julius Baer Group, played a singular role as the go-to private banker for the so-called Bolichicos — the privileged offspring of Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution — as they looked to shuttle their overnight fortunes offshore. Among his would-be clients: Maduro’s stepsons.

But then in 2018, the blond, bespectacled banker was arrested on money laundering charges at Miami’s international airport while vacationing with his family. Thrust into a spotlight he never sought, the normally discreet European began his second act as the all-star witness to a U.S. federal criminal investigation known as Operation Money Flight, which seeks to untangle how Venezuelan kleptocrats stole billions in oil wealth from their country.

By all accounts, Krull’s assistance mapping the shell companies and straw men strung...