Former ‘banker of the year’ jailed for almost 4 years after spending more than $217,000 at strip clubs and on Tinder dates

• Former CEO of Raiffeisen Bank, Pierin Vincenz, has been found guilty of fraud and other charges. 
• The former “banker of the year” was sentenced to almost 4 years in prison.
• The Swiss banker had used company funds to pay for Tinder dates, personal holidays, and strip clubs. 

A Swiss ex-banker once awarded the title of “banker of the year” has received three years and nine months in jail for charges including fraud after a trial exposed his spending of nearly 200,000 Swiss francs ($200,000) of company money on strip clubs, tinder dates, and more, Reuters report. 

Former Chief Executive of Raiffeisen Bank, Pierin Vincenz, 65, was also fined 840,000 Swiss francs ($900,600) and ordered to pay nearly 1.6 million francs to firms affected by his fraud.

Vincenz has been found guilty of several charges, including fraud, embezzlement, and forgery in a series of illicit deals that made him millions, said the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. 

The expenses he charged to the bank became a feature of the trial poured over by the media.

According to The Sunday Times, Vincenz was accused of using his company credit card to fund what the prosecutor called a 20-year “tour de Suisse of the red-light zones.”

Most notable was the $217,675 paid to strip clubs and burlesque bars, the Daily Beast previously reported. Vincenz spent approximately $97,000 at one burlesque cabaret theatre, The Sunday Times said, which he charged to his Raiffeisen company card.

The BBC previously reported that Vincenz spent 700 francs ($749.37) on dinner with a woman he met on Tinder, which he labeled a “job interview.”

The Times reported that Vincenz claimed almost 250,000 Swiss francs on private jets and family holidays to Mallorca, Tenerife, and Dubai. Vincenz justified the spending by stating they were necessary to maintain contacts with international banks, German news site Tagesschau said.

During the trial, The Sunday Times said he admitted to “mistakes” regarding his corporate expenses. One of these errors, the newspaper said, was spending more than $5,000 on his company credit card to repair a Zurich hotel room wrecked in what prosecutors called a “massive row” with a stripper.

Reuters reports that Judge Sebastian Aeppli, who sentenced Vincenz, said “(His) understanding, whereby practically all expenditures of a business person fall under disposable company expenses so long as any remote connection to the business activity exists, clearly went too far,” Aeppli said.