Geneva (AFP) – The Swiss branch of HSBC bank was Monday at the center of a huge scandal after several newspapers had ensured she had helped some of his clients, including wealthy industrialists and politicians in hide billions of dollars to avoid paying taxes.
This investigation, dubbed SwissLeaks was carried out based on the files of the bank HSBC Switzerland, with headquarters in Geneva and stolen 2007 by former Franco-Italian computer scientist Hervé Falciani.
The newspaper Le Monde has had access, by a secret informant in January 2014, hundreds of thousands of data to read, providing information on more 106,000 customers from approximately 200 countries in the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC.
“One night, we printed the file. The printer has exploded. We combined the hundreds of pages,” he told AFP Fabrice Lhomme, one of the two World investigative journalists who worked on this case.
“Overwhelmed” by the flood, the newspaper worked with a global network of some 150 journalists via an “encrypted forum” to uncover the tax avoidance scheme orchestrated by HSBC Switzerland.
Specifically, according to Le Monde, between 9 November 2006 and 31 March 2007, some 180.6 billion EUR 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.
As a result of these publications, voices were raised in Switzerland to demand action against HSBC Switzerland, hitherto spared in this country, while Investigations are already open in Belgium and France.
“I am very angry” and “an investigation” would be the least of it, “said Monday Micheline Calmy-Rey, former minister Socialist Swiss government, according to which the image of the country has been seriously tarnished by the case.
In Belgium, a judge who indicted HSBC Private Bank in November for “tax evasion serious and laundering “considered an” issue international arrest warrants “against its leaders, saying it was” now time for the bank to work. “
Hervé Falciani, former HSBC -informaticien, said for his part that “whistleblowers” should benefit from protection, and that condition other informants may appear.
“If we want counteract impunity, we must also provide the means to do it, “he told the Swiss TV channel RTS
-.” Violations of the past “-
For its part, 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.
In these files are Saudis names, suspected of financed Osama bin Laden in the 2000s, the drug lords, arms traffickers and corrupt diamond.
According to HSBC Switzerland, new management, put in place after the theft of data 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 of a very thorough internal control system” .
“These revelations about practices of the past must be remembered that the old business model of the Swiss private bank is no longer acceptable,” concluded the bank.
She has been cleaning its customers, who suffered severe weight loss program, being reduced by 70% since 2007, while 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 end of 2014
-. Crowned heads and stars of 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.
” HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) 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, “criticizes his side the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Banking secrecy in Switzerland has fallen as fast shrinking in recent years, the pressure on Swiss banks s’ being greatly increased, with the intensification of many governments hunting tax evasion.
On Monday and Tuesday, a G20 meeting held in Istanbul, where are found finance ministers and leaders central banks. The G20 has made the fight against evasion and tax optimization one of his horses battles.
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