The headquarters of the Swiss bank HSBC in London, March 4, 2013 (AFP / File / Andrew Cowie)
The Swiss subsidiary of HSBC since Monday was the center of a vast scandal after several newspapers had ensured she had helped some of his clients, including wealthy industrialists and politicians, to hide billions of dollars for their avoid paying taxes.
This investigation, dubbed SwissLeaks, was performed on the database files from the bank HSBC Switzerland, with headquarters in Geneva, stolen in 2007 by a former employee of the bank The Franco-Italian computer scientist Hervé Falciani.
In Belgium, a judge who indicted HSBC Private Bank in November for “serious tax fraud and money laundering” considered international arrest warrants against its leaders, saying it was “now time for the bank to work.”
In Britain, MPs have also announced the opening of an investigation into the bank with headquarters London.
The newspaper Le Monde has had access in January 2014, hundreds of thousands of data to decipher, containing information on more than 106,000 customers from approximately 200 countries in the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC.
“One evening, the files were printed. The printer has exploded. We combined the hundreds of pages,” he told AFP Fabrice Lhomme, one of the World journalists who have worked on this issue.
The daily has worked with a global network of 150 journalists via an “encrypted forum” to uncover the tax avoidance scheme orchestrated by HSBC Switzerland.
The computer Hervé Falciani, a former employee of HSBC in Geneva, during a hearing at the National Assembly in Paris, July 2, 2013 (AFP / File / Kenzo Tribouillard)
Specifically, according to Le Monde, between 9 November 2006 and 31 March 2007, some 180.6 billion euros transited on HSBC accounts in Geneva, concealed among others behind offshore structures in Panama and the British Virgin Islands.
The files contain personal information about customers, notes bankers, and account movements.
Following these publications, voices were raised to demand action against HSBC Switzerland, hitherto spared in this country, while investigations are already open in Belgium and France.
The opening of a investigation “would be the least of it,” said for his part Micheline Calmy-Rey, former Socialist Minister of the Swiss government.
Map locating the 15 countries most involved in the case” Swissleaks “and list personalities (AFP / JM Cornu / A.Bommenel)
In Belgium, a judge who indicted HSBC Private Bank in November for “serious tax fraud and money laundering” has considered international arrest warrants against its leaders, saying it was “now time for the bank to work.”
In Britain, MPs have also announced the opening of an investigation the bank is headquartered in London.
Hervé Falciani, former HSBC computer specialist, said for his part that “whistleblowers” should benefit from protection, and that condition other informants might appear.
In the French newspaper Le Parisien, he assured the journalists who revealed the scandal had access to the “tip of the iceberg.” “It is impossible that the French banks are not affected” by the tax fraud scheme, he added
-. HSBC recognizes ‘failures’ –
Meanwhile, the bank HSBC Switzerland told AFP that these practices belong “to the past.” “Since 2008, HSBC has radically changed its strategy,” she added, acknowledging that he had “shortcomings” in the past.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, November 2, 2014 in Amman (AFP / File / Khalil MAZRAAWI)
In these files Saudis include names, alleged to have financed Osama bin Laden in the 2000s, the drug lords, arms traffickers and corrupt diamond.
According to HSBC Switzerland, a new direction, set up after the data theft case in 2007, “conducted an in-depth examination of the cases, including closures client accounts that did not meet the high standards of the bank, and the establishment a very thorough internal control “system.
The bank claims to have cleaned up its customer base, and managed accounts are more than 10,000, against 30,000 there eight years.
The assets managed by the bank also shrunk from $ 118 billion to 68 billion at end-2014
-. Crowned heads and show business –
customer names reproduced Monday in the media include those of the stars of show business, and business leaders or their heirs.
These names were known until now only by justice and some tax administrations, even if some elements had already leaked in the media.
In France, comedian Gad Elmaleh is quoted to have disposed of a poorly stocked account in Geneva, with a little more 80,000 euros between 2006 and 2007. According to the information of the World, he rectified the situation with the French tax authorities.
Among the names mentioned in various media include in particular those of the kings of Morocco Mohammed VI respectively Jordan Abdullah II.
The Swiss newspaper Le Temps focuses on politically exposed persons, citing among other Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Explanation of the mechanism to ensure opacity Domestic (AFP / S.Ramis / A.Bommenel)
“HSBC Private Bank (Switzerland) continued to provide services to clients who had been adversely cited by the United Nations, in legal documents and in the media for their links with arms trafficking, conflict diamonds, or corruption ” castigates his side the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Banking secrecy in Switzerland was reduced to a trickle in recent years, the pressure on Swiss banks are strongly increased with the intensification of many governments hunting tax evasion.
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