French Budget Minister under Probe for Tax Fraud

French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac is under investigation for tax fraud after a media report that he had an undeclared UBS account in Geneva which he then moved to Asia, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Cahuzac, who is in charge of battling tax evasion, welcomed the investigation, which he said would prove his "complete innocence".

The minister has denied the report by the respected Mediapart investigative website that he had an undeclared Swiss account until 2010, when he transferred the funds to Singapore.

Mediapart said it had a "trace" of a conversation between the minister and one of his former aides in which he allegedly fretted about the UBS account and then said he had "dealt with the matter."

Investigators will "without further delay verify the authenticity and the contents of the recording... to reach the truth," prosecutors said in a statement.

Cahuzac has dismissed reports of offshore accounts as "crazy claims". In a statement, he said: "I have never had an account in Switzerland or any other place abroad."

He also denied figuring in the recording reported by Mediapart, saying: "In the three-minute-40-second recording, there are four to five seconds when it could be me, but it seems it is not me."

The minister cited his brother's expertise to back up the claim, saying the person in the recording stumbled while speaking, and adding: "My brother says I never stumble."

Mediapart claimed that Cahuzac closed the account in 2010 just before becoming head of the finance committee of the National Assembly. It alleged he made a discreet trip to Geneva to close the account.

The minister, who is a civil plaintiff in a judicial probe into French residents suspected of tax fraud, has announced sweeping measures to fight tax evasion.

He said he had asked his lawyers in December to get a certificate from UBS to state he never had an account nor any commercial transactions with the bank.