Swiss leaks

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As a swiss leaks (also Swiss Leaks , swiss leaks , swiss leaks ; english leaks , leaks, holes, leaks', a neologism in analogy to WikiLeaks ) is a tax determination to customers of the publication was carried out in February 2015 HSBC branch in Geneva called. Thousands of HSBC documents marked as confidential were evaluated by tax authorities in various countries. Using this keyword, various media reported on this in February in cooperation with the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), including Süddeutsche Zeitung , Tages-Anzeiger and SonntagsZeitung .

It is the biggest data leak in the banking industry to date that has been evaluated by journalists and investigators.

Origin of the data

The documents are said to have been confiscated from a former HSBC employee, Hervé Falciani , who allegedly stole them between October 2006 and December 2008. A little later, charges were brought against him in Switzerland. He was accused of stealing the data with the aim of reselling it.

Copies of the documents were also sent to the French newspaper Le Monde , which handed them over to the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists in Washington . The ICIJ made it available to another 45 media outlets worldwide, including The Guardian , the BBC and the US program 60 Minutes . The documents were evaluated by more than 140 journalists in months of research. The tax authorities of other countries received corresponding documents from France, Germany in 2010. However, it was complained that the German list was incomplete.

Content of the data

Swiss Leaks: HSBC bank account card

In total, the data is said to affect US $ 100 billion from 106,000 customers in 203 countries.

Only a small number of the accounts were known to the tax authorities of the countries concerned. In total, investigators around the world are said to have collected more than a billion euros in taxes and fines by the time the research was published. The documents also contained deposits from relatives and members of the government of various autocratic regimes. B. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad , Egypt's ex-President Husni Mubarak and China's former Prime Minister Li Peng . Links to criminals such as suspected blood diamond traders, gun dealers and terror sponsors also emerged.

With reference to Germany there are said to be 2106 accounts and almost 1000 citizens are threatened with criminal proceedings for tax evasion. More than 200 of them used front companies. For Germany it is a total of a hidden fortune of 3.3 billion, an average of over 1.5 million euros .

Political and economic consequences

On February 14, 2015, the British banker and former head of the major bank HSBC Stephen Green resigned from his position on the advisory board of the British Banking Association as a result of the Swiss Leaks tax affair. The affair also had an impact on the start of the UK general election campaign in 2015 , where the tax authority, which is part of David Cameron's administration, took a position on a parliamentary committee about why it has so far hardly brought criminal charges.

Web links

Remarks

  1. Oliver Meiler: Data thief Falciani is charged. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. December 11, 2014, accessed February 11, 2015 .
  2. Grandjean, Martin (2015) Data Visualization: #SwissLeaks, the map of the globalized tax evasion
  3. Explore the Swiss Leaks Data. In: icij.org. Retrieved February 11, 2015 .
  4. Swiss bank hoarded illicit money for customers. Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 8, 2015, accessed on February 8, 2015 .
  5. ^ "Swiss Leaks" report: HSBC stashed illicit money in the billions. faz.net, February 8, 2015, accessed February 8, 2015 .
  6. Christoph Giesen: Swiss Leaks: 1000 Germans threaten criminal proceedings. In: sueddeutsche.de . February 9, 2015, accessed February 11, 2015 .
  7. Ex-HSBC boss Green resigns. sueddeutsche.de, February 14, 2015, accessed on February 15, 2015 .
  8. Sueddeutsche.de:Swisslea's tax affair in Great Britain is widening