Putin Ties
The report said the bank held deposits for controversial figures such as the political operative for the late Haitian President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who was accused of embezzling hundreds of millions before fleeing his country, as well as fugitives like diamond dealers Mozes Victor Konig and Kenneth Lee Akselrod, whose names appear on the wanted list run by Interpol, the international police agency.
Other depositors have appeared on U.S. sanction lists, including Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire whose close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin put him in the U.S.’s sights after Russia annexed Crimea. Anton Kurevin, a spokesman for Timchenko’s Volga Group, declined to comment.
Disclosures about HSBC’s clients are the latest blow to the Swiss private banking system, which once offered near- impenetrable privacy to depositors. Most countries don’t forbid citizens from holding offshore accounts, and many are used for legitimate purposes. Among many entertainers who held accounts, according to the report, was rock star David Bowie, a Swiss citizen. It didn’t accuse him of wrongdoing. A spokesman for Bowie didn’t respond to e-mails seeking comment.
Diplomatic Pressure
Steps to improve transparency and information sharing between the EU and Switzerland -- which isn’t part of the EU -- have been adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as the Group of 20 countries are being put in place, the EU’s Mock said. The measures “we hope by 2018, at the latest, will put an end to tax evasion and fraud via the use of secret bank accounts,” she said.
The accounts also attracted depositors eager to shield their money from creditors, ex-spouses, political opponents and law-enforcement agencies.
Over the past several years, investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Justice Department have used the threat of criminal prosecution and financial sanctions to pressure UBS Group AG and Credit Suisse Group AG to pay fines and turn over the names of thousands of depositors. Diplomatic pressure persuaded the Swiss government to enact stricter reporting regulations.
Drug Cartels
The HSBC leak began as a rogue operation by a computer technician, Herve Falciani, who left the company in 2008 with five disks of confidential information. A self-described whistle-blower, Falciani provided details on the 100,000-plus accounts to French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund. She passed details from the cache -- which came to be known as the Falciani List or Lagarde List -- to governments around the world.