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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSwiss Bank Leaker; 'Banks created a system for making themselves rich at the expense of society
At the end of 2008, Hervé Falciani committed what is believed to have been the most portentous theft of banking data in history. The systems engineer and former employee at the Geneva offices of HSBC left Switzerland for France and took data from around 130,000 customers at the Anglo-Asian bank along with him.
France's finance minister at the time, current International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde, then handed data supplied by Falciani on to other countries. With the help of the information, authorities were able to uncover hundreds of cases of tax evasion, including those involving members of Spain's Botín banking family. In Greece, the data, which is often referred to as the "Lagarde List," was largely forgotten until it returned to the headlines during the debt crisis.
Falciani, 41, has also cooperated with the American authorities. Indeed, on the strength of the information he provided, HBSC was forced to pay a $1.9 billion settlement with the United States after a Senate committee found that failures in HSBC's money-laundering controls had enabled terrorists and drug cartels to gain access to the US financial system.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Falciani, you have been on the run for years, after being accused of violating Switzerland's bank secrecy laws and causing serious difficulties for tax evaders and banks. Do you feel a kinship to former NSA employee Edward Snowden?
Falciani: Yes, in fact I have even tried to contact him. It's important that there are people like Edward Snowden, who speak the truth and point out systemic problems. We could ask whether we even need intelligence services, but I believe the answer to that is yes. What we certainly don't need are governments telling us what is good for us.
more;
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/interview-hsbc-swiss-bank-whistleblower-herve-falciani-on-tax-evasion-a-911279.html
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)in which he feared for his life.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Hydra
(14,459 posts)The people who say we need to trust the people in charge are either hopelessly naive or have an agenda. We need people to speak and to out data that the 1% don't want us to have.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)toby jo
(1,269 posts)We hold the Swiss to our standards and a whole lotta graft will start to fall out. What's their kickback per dollar hidden? They call themselves neutral while whoring on the world.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Falciani: At first glance, that appears to be true -- the US, for example, imposed a heavy fine against HSBC for money laundering. But I was surprised that the American authorities decided HSBC was "too big to jail" -- in other words, they shied away from imposing prison sentences on bank managers, although it's hard to imagine that top-level managers knew nothing of the bank's systemic participation in money laundering.
SPIEGEL: How so?
Falciani: The MIS Global Technologies computer system alone, which makes it possible to use a form of double-entry accounting to conceal illegal income, costs several million dollars. Such investments are approved by a bank's most senior managers.
SPIEGEL: Could you give us a dumbed down description of how money laundering through double accounting works?
Falciani: Let's say a Mexican drug lord has a bank account in Mexico that contains millions from the drug trade. He also has an account in Switzerland with nothing in it. Using its software, the bank sees the account balance in Mexico and grants him a loan in his Swiss account worth the same amount. The money is now laundered and the drug lord can even write off the interest on that debt from his taxes. We need to expose and combat such systems. I would like to get more governments to take part in this.