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BUSINESS EXECUTIVES, POLITICIANS, rich heiresses along with alleged arms traders, drug traffickers and al-Qaeda backers figure among the HSBC clients listed in secret bank documents that Monday sparked a global outcry over tax dodgers and the banks which help them.
The documents claim HSBC’s Swiss banking arm helped clients in more than 200 countries evade taxes on accounts totalling $119 billion (104 billion euros).
Here is a profile of some of the more than 100,000 customers listed in the “Swissleaks” cache of secret files, stolen by an IT worker in 2007 and passed to French authorities.
Inclusion in the list does not automatically imply wrongdoing.
Nationalities
Swiss clients had placed the most money with the Geneva-based bank, at $31.2 billion, followed by British nationals at $21.7 billion, Venezuelans at $14.8 billion and Americans at $13.4 billion.
Israel, which came in sixth with its nationals holding $10 billion in HSBC Switzerland accounts, found some of its wealthiest citizens on the list, including billionaire businessman Beny Steinmetz and his brother Daniel, who made a fortune in diamonds with more than $100 million to their names.
Stars and wealthy heirs
Film stars, super models, rock stars and fashion designers were also clients, although many of them maintain they have already come clean and made amends for previously hidden accounts.
Arlette Ricci, the heiress to French fashion designer Nina Ricci’s estate, will go on trial for fiscal fraud in France next week.
Arms, drugs and diamond traders
The Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger (TA) focused yesterday on some of the suspected criminals on the list.
It mentioned the case of a Belgian-Lebanese diamond trader in Antwerp who has since been jailed in Belgium for trading in illegal diamonds.
The man had been able to open an HSBC account despite UN accusations in 2001 that he had breached an international embargo on dealing in so-called “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone.
The account remained open despite a fiscal fraud probe in 2005, and between 2006 and 2007 the man deposited more than $2.8 million, the TA newspaper reported.
According to Belgian daily Le Soir, at least 916 of the more than 3,000 Belgians in the files were diamond merchants from Antwerp.
HSBC’s Swiss arm also held an account for a Guinean company that was delivering arms to Liberia in 2003, in the middle of a civil war, TA reported.
That account held $7.14 million in 2007, the documents show.
The Swiss daily also highlighted that a list of French client names had been compared to a Europol database, resulting in 120 matches, including numerous alleged drug traffickers.
Bin Laden’s ‘Golden Chain’
Also reportedly figuring on the client list are members of Osama bin Laden’s known family and members of the so-called “Golden Chain” of wealthy Arabs suspected by US investigators of being al-Qaeda’s main backers.
According to the Swissleaks files, an account held by a 70-year-old Saudi national, who is the head of an international conglomerate and reportedly connected to the “Golden Chain,” was bulging with up to $70 million.
Politics
Numerous politicians, their family members and associates also figure in the files.
Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is facing corruption charges in the United States, is listed with an HSBC account worth $27 million.
Former Egyptian trade minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, who fled Cairo during the 2011 uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak, is listed as having power of attorney over an account worth $31 million.
And Belhassen Trabelsi, the brother-in-law of Tunisia’s ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, figures on the list with an account valued at $22 million in 2007.
Swiss weekly Le Matin Dimanche also cites the case of a Lebanese government minister and prosperous entrepreneur who the files showed had stashed some $42 million in his HSBC Switzerland account, although a spokesman insisted he had made his fortune before rising to power.
The daughter of a former Chinese prime minister had opened an account in 2001 while her father still held important positions within the Chinese Communist Party, and allowed it to swell to nearly $2.5 million, the documents showed.
The business world
Russian daily Vedomosti said it had not found any of Russia’s top politicians when it trawled through the files but instead located some 740 Russian “millionaire civil servants”.
Most of them had worked for the state or large state-owned businesses and public banking establishments, but none remained in a position of responsibility or at the helm of Russian public companies, the paper said.
British daily The Guardian also revealed that Richard Caring, the owner of numerous chains of restaurants and stores, in September 2005 had withdrawn five million Swiss francs from his HSBC account in Geneva, in cash — enough to fill a suitcase.
Since then, HSBC Switzerland has limited a single cash withdrawal to $10,000.
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When can I stop paying 5% on my insurance to cover Sean Quinns gambling debt?
Around about the same time as you stop paying the levy that was put on premiums for PMPA (that company collapsed in the 80′s )Insurance.
I’m rich, rich I tells ya. Oh, no, wait, I’m not. I’m less marginally less poor.
Lol. Paid myself a salary today. So much better off! NOT. I am a communee. A victim of fitting into a certain bracket. When you can’t even take home half your salary, you really need to think about getting out.
An extra €3.35 a week. Nearly the price of a pint in my town. Heartbreaking!!!
So that’s a fiver a week back… Can I have the other €100 taken on me through wage cuts, taxes and levies… Seeing as “the recovery” is going so well.
I can nearly stop checking down the back of the couch now.
Lower income taxes, lower USC, lower property tax for many, cheaper petrol at the pumps. Even when you consider the water charges, the vast majority of people will be better off this year compared to last.
Are you on drugs!!!!
Its going to great, the whole country will be splashing out with there newly recovered wealth. The boom time is back!
An extra €5 in children’s allowance Ian!
MGL@…the guy you are addressing is not on drugs. You can only be slightly better off proportional to what you contribute in the first place. You cannot get blood from a stone. At the same time, blood does not return to a stone to produce Ruby…
On an individual level that 5e won’t make much difference so it would have been better off just saving it and diverting it elsewhere.
Sure who can afford drugs?
I don’t think families would be financial better off.The higher rate decreased by 1% and USC decreased by 0.5% across 3 bands of taxation (as far as I know).The water charges will ensure that families don’t feel the reduction of tax.Furthermore,2019 will bring normal back the normal rates of the water charge.This,in turn,makes me believe that the budget did no justice for the working class people.
Thanks for the fiver. You certainly won’t be getting it back for the water!
Free GP care for under 6′s, as per Budget 2014, seems to have been forgotten
Changes to tax rates? Only tax bands, or so I thought?
Income tax band increased by €1000 and the top rate dropped to 40%.
You on overtime today Reg?
Feck all on the telly Norman.
Thought so Reg,nice to see you’re talking up the budget on behalf of the government again,they really fecked up with the water charges though buried all the budget good news.Don’t forget to mention how better off you are with the changes,that might swing a few votes for FG.
Just answered Jason’s question with a couple of facts. Didn’t comment on the pros and cons of the budget.
But since you asked my household will be over €1000 better off than last year with the tax changes and children’s allowance increase excluding water charges. I’ll take that!
Reg gets some amount of stick from shinnerbots these days. Reg is like me, looking out for the realistic, hard working, self employed mofos…keep up the good work Reg.
Thanks for the support Gavin!
Gavin really anyone that doesn’t cheer lead for the government is a Shinner? Grow up.
I didn’t ask Reg I just reminded you to mention it.On one post you claimed €800 but then you upped it to a €1000.
I explained this to you previously Norman but you continue to repeat to try and discredit me. I said that the net effect of the tax changes it will be €800 (both of us on average enough salaries) but when you add children’s allowance it will be over €1000. Surely that’s not too difficult for you to understand?
Reg not trying to discredit you,just seems I have a better memory than you.
Reg, Norman is one of the people who are afraid things will get better & he’ll have nothing to moan & cry about!
Protect I don’t cry,moan very subjective really.Its only a moan because you disagree with the comment.
Thanks reg!
Nothing on the telly,boi ?!?!?! Top of the Pops : 1980 – Big Hits on BBC 4 ,boi !! Mirror in the Bathroom,like!
I’m all 80s out CorkBoi…..got a best of 80s CD for Christmas!!
Under this government budget & water plan, our household (average household income) is €220 per year better off.
Under the Shinner budget/water plan we would have been worse off by around €160.
Not keen on electioneering giveaways.
But I’m even less keen on unnecessary tax rises.
Let’s forget Shinners for a second and focus on those who cannot add. I have been asking this for months now. Can anyone, for the love of God, please explain their “Robin Hood” wet dreams/ “passed down cliches” as to how we don’t have an extremely progressive tax society. I will even give you a head start and say “start with the VAT” as that is the only theory that is not totally berserk. Real numbers (I will let you round them to real numbers) will suffice for this little experiment! Ps. If you don’t come out with real figures, you lose the argument and my search will go on…
VAT is high in Ireland. And often bizarre – for instance, while books are zero-rated, ebooks, which are more and more common as the way we read books, are rated at 23%. Insane.
A LACK OF EMPATHY just proves one thing, this government could do anything and the majority here just say what can we do, do they not realise that we the voters are the governments employers, that the government works for us and not their cronies or party donators or even the plutocrates in Frankfurt, Brussels or Berlin?
One foot forward 5 steps back – getting dizzy with the Government shuffle or we should we just do “the hussel” :-((
So what.
have your say