Whistleblower Christoph Meili

A thorn in the side of Jewish Europeans and others whose families were robbed by the Nazis was the sealed-lip policies of Swiss banks.

In 1997, Meili, a 29-year-old night guard at Switzerland's Union Bank in Zurich, found documents that the bank was going to shred. These documents contained records of funds that rightfully belonged to deceased Jews. To destroy such documents would have been a violation of that nation's laws.

Meili turned the documents over to a Jewish organization in Zurich, and the matter soon received heavy international publicity.

Embarrassed authorities launched an investigation of Meili for violating banking confidentiality laws. Encouraged by prominent New York lawyer Ed Fagan, Meili and his family left Switzerland and took up residence in the United States, where they were granted asylum. They appear to have been the only Swiss citizens ever to receive political asylum in the U.S.

The class-action suit against Swiss banks led by Fagan ended in 1998 with an enormous $1.25 billion judgment against the banks. For his part, Meili reportedly received $750,000. He also became a U.S. citizen, but after being divorced, he returned to Switzerland in reduced financial circumstances.