Rudolf Elmer

Who is Rudolf Elmer?

Rudolf Elmer is a former employee of the Swiss bank Julius Bär. He worked for the bank for close to two decades, and in his last position, he managed the bank's Caribbean operations for eight years until his dismissal in 2002. He came to prominence as a whistleblower in 2008 when he gave secret documents to WikiLeaks detailing the activities of Julius Bär in the Cayman Islands and its role in alleged tax evasion. Before that, he had been arrested in 2005 and held for 30 days.

In January 2011, he was convicted in Switzerland of breaching security laws and other offenses. He was rearrested immediately thereafter for having again distributed illegally obtained data to WikiLeaks. Julius Bär alleges that Elmer has doctored evidence to suggest the bank engaged in tax evasion.