Im writing a mystery story, does anyone know anything about swiss banks?

im writing a mystery story and i want it to be realistic. my question is, basically, how do people set up secret swiss bank accounts without being traced. you always read about it in the newspaper, but i want to know how its done so the character in my story is believable.

for example, to transfer money from a country of origin account to a swiss one, surely it would be traced to the money to the new account by the electronic bank transfer.


i was guessing people usually do it via another off shore account in another country first as a proxy. but which countries are usually used for this? i was thinking bermuda but i forget. is that right? or are there any others? or do they just send it directly to switzerland? but then of course, the bank country of origin
would know where the money was "hidden" if the money was sent directly to the swiss bank. so, it wouldnt be "hidden".

how do people do this? i want my story to be realistic. and not terribly outlandish, so the simplest method to do this would be great if you can think of one.

also, how would one set up a swiss bank account? surely going to the swiss bank branch in the country of origin would make the banks laws applicable to that country, so the details of new account wouldnt be hidden that way either. or would someone have to go to switzerland itself to open an account? so would it be more realistic to say they had to go to switzerland or could i just say they set it up over the phone and was sent the documents needed to be signed?

what sort of ID would my character need to set up an account in swiss from abroad?