Swiss Leaks (or SwissLeaks) is the name of a journalistic investigation, released in February 2015, of a giant
tax evasion
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...
scheme allegedly operated with the knowledge and encouragement of the British multinational bank
HSBC via its Swiss subsidiary,
HSBC Private Bank (Suisse).
Triggered by leaked information from French computer analyst
Hervé Falciani
Hervé Daniel Marcel Falciani (; born 9 January 1972) is a French-Italian systems engineer and whistleblower who is credited with "the biggest banking leak in history." In 2008, Falciani began collaborating with numerous European nations by pro ...
on accounts held by over 100,000 clients and 20,000 offshore companies with HSBC in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
, the disclosed information was then called "the biggest leak in Swiss banking history".
Investigation
Investigators allege that 180.6 billion euros passed through HSBC accounts held in Geneva by over 100,000 clients and 20,000
offshore companies
The term "offshore company" or “offshore corporation” is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to:
* a company, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshoring business pr ...
between November 2006 and March 2007. The data for this period comes from files removed from HSBC Private Bank by a former staffer,
software engineer
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...
Hervé Falciani
Hervé Daniel Marcel Falciani (; born 9 January 1972) is a French-Italian systems engineer and whistleblower who is credited with "the biggest banking leak in history." In 2008, Falciani began collaborating with numerous European nations by pro ...
,
who fled to
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
with the attempt to sell it. Later he handed it to French authorities in late 2008.
Investigation in France
The case was referred to French prosecutors in January 2009, and they have since concentrated their investigations on a small part of the “Falciani lists” – the around 3,000 French citizens suspected of having concealed their money at
HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) with the bank's collusion. The bank has de facto been placed under formal investigation as a legal entity for “illicit selling of banking and financial services” and “money laundering of the proceeds of tax evasion”.
HSBC PB is said to have concealed over €5.7 billion in tax havens for its French clients alone. The French Finance Ministry took 72 individuals to court (including
Nina Ricci’s heir, Arlette Ricci), as most of the French taxpayers whose identity was revealed in the Falciani lists have since regularised their tax affairs.
''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' has been investigating the HSBC affair since the outset, and in early 2014 came into possession of international banking data including all the files the French tax authorities had extracted from the Falciani lists in the strictest secrecy since 2009, sometimes ignoring government reservations. The bank's account managers illegally contacted many of these people in France. They were all encouraged by
HSBC Private Bank (Suisse)'s executive committee to hide their money behind offshore screen structures, generally based in
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
or the
British Virgin Islands
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type = Territorial song
, song = " Oh, Beautiful Virgin Islands"
, image_map = File:British Virgin Islands on the globe (Americas centered).svg
, map_caption =
, mapsize = 290px
, image_map2 = Bri ...
, in order to avoid certain European taxes, chiefly the EU Savings DirectiveI
Investigation in Morocco
According to the International Consortium of Investigation Journalists (
ICIJ
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with ...
), which treated the data of the Swiss Leaks,
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
is concerned by $1.6 billion of tax evasion and stands at thirty-seventh place of the affected countries. Morocco stands at twenty-third place for the number of clients (1068). The maximal amount of tax evasion for one client was $74.1 million and the average was $1.5 million.
As stated in the Moroccan law, it is strictly forbidden to have a foreign bank account. But the documents revealed that the royal family were part of the HSBC clients.
Prince Moulay Rachid was touched by this scandal, the princess
Lalla Meryem
Princess Lalla Meryem of Morocco ( ar, الأميرة للا مريم, born 26 August 1962 in Rome, Italy) is the first daughter and eldest child of the late King Hassan II of Morocco and his wife, Lalla Latifa Hammou.
After she obtained her B ...
and the current king
Mohammed VI Muhammad VI may refer to:
* Muhammad Imaaduddeen VI (1868–1932), sultan of the Maldives from 1893 to 1902
* Mehmed VI (1861–1926), sultan of Ottoman Empire, from 1918 to 1922
* Mohammed VI of Morocco
Mohammed VI ( ar, محمد الساد ...
with an amount $9.1 million hidden in the HSBC bank.
International investigation
Given the scale of the investigation, ''
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' called upon 154 journalists affiliated with 47 different media outlets including: ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'',
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
, ''
Süddeutsche Zeitung'', and ''
The Indian Express
''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...
'', among others, to help analyze the data. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (
ICIJ
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with ...
) has been coordinating this international collaborative effort.
In February 2015, the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. with ...
(ICIJ) website released information about bank accounts in
Switzerland under the title ''Swiss Leaks: Murky Cash Sheltered by Bank Secrecy,''
which involves the ''Swiss Leaks Project'',
a website containing almost 60,000 leaked files that provide details on over 100,000 HSBC clients and their bank accounts.
Involvement
The ''Swiss Leaks Project's
'' investigations revealed that HSBC's Geneva branch, ignoring these rules, helped people accused of drug-running, corruption, money-laundering or arms-dealing conceal billions of dollars in Switzerland.
Among the 66 names revealed by the Swiss Leaks investigation are:
*
Rami Makhlouf
Rami Makhlouf ( ar, رَامِي مَخْلُوف, Rāmī Maḫlūf; born 10 July 1969) is a Syrian businessman and the maternal cousin of president Bashar al-Assad. At the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, he was considered to be Syr ...
, whose cousin and close associate, Syrian President
Bashar al Assad
Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the S ...
.
*
Katex Mines Guinee, a company fingered by the United Nations as a “possible provider of weapons” in Liberia's civil war.
*
Erez Daleyot
Erez Daleyot (born circa 1956) is a Belgian-Israeli diamond dealer, who may have once controlled one-third of all trade in diamonds worldwide. In April 2022 he was arrested in Zimbabwe for suspected tax evasion in South Africa.
Career Early care ...
, a Belgian-Israeli diamond tycoon, connected to arms trafficking,
blood diamonds and bribery.
*
Jeffrey Tesler, a lawyer and key participant in the $182-million
Halliburton
Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation responsible for most of the world's hydraulic fracturing operations. In 2009, it was the world's second largest oil field service company. It has operations in more than 70 countries ...
Bribery Scandal;.
*
Rachid Mohamed Rachid
Rachid Mohamed Rachid or Rasheed Mohamed Rasheed became Egypt's minister of foreign trade and industry in July 2004. Two years later, the ministry was expanded to include domestic trade within Egypt and was renamed the Ministry of Trade and Indus ...
, the former Egyptian trade minister who fled Cairo in February 2011 amid the uprising against
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in ...
. Rachid was convicted in absentia for alleged profiteering and squandering public funds.
*
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov, a Russian banker accused of looting £400m from the Lithuanian
Snoras bank.
Amongst the top 10 countries with the largest dollar amounts in leaked Swiss files are
By July 2021, the Government of India identified undeclared assets worth of about following the investigation and levied in tax penalty.
HSBC trial
In March 2015, the French financial state prosecutor has requested that HSBC's Swiss private bank be sent to criminal trial over the suspected tax-dodging scheme for wealthy customers. The recommendation follows a lengthy investigation by local magistrates into alleged tax fraud involving 3,000 French taxpayers and is a procedural step that brings the Swiss banking arm one step closer to a possible trial in France.
In November 2017,
HSBC has agreed to pay 300 million euros ($352 million) to avoid going to trial in France for enabling tax fraud. The deal struck between the financial crime prosecutor's office and the bank is a first in France under a new procedure that allows companies under suspicion of corruption or dissimulation of tax fraud to negotiate a fine to stop a case from going to trial.
French prosecutors have now dropped the case against
HSBC Holdings
HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tril ...
.
Media coverage
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
reported that HSBC had put pressure on media not to report about the controversy, with British Newspaper ''
'' claiming HSBC advertising had been put "on pause" after ''The Guardians coverage of the matter.
'' resigned from the paper; in an open letter he claimed the ''Daily Telegraph'' suppressed negative stories and dropped investigations into HSBC because of the bank's advertising.
''.
– a subset of the data set, passed on to the Greek government in 2010 by French finance minister