Geneva-based daily Le Temps features on its Monday front page an ominous-looking photo of HSBC’s Geneva headquarters together with the headline “What the Falciani files reveal,” referring to the latest developments in the giant tax evasion scheme led by the world’s second largest bank, HSBC via its Swiss subsidiary, HSBC Private Bank.
According to a report prepared by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that was released Sunday, the Falciani files, potentially the biggest banking leak in history, are shedding light on some 30,000 accounts — some belonging to high-profile business figures, celebrities and even royalty like King Mohamed VI of Morocco — holding almost $120 billion in assets.
The large-scale fraud came to light when self-described whistleblower Hervé Falciani, a computer technician for HSBC, fled to France in 2008 with five disks of confidential information.
Read more about the SwissLeaks here, from Bloomberg.
ABOUT THE SOURCE: Based in Geneva, Le Temps is a top French-language daily in Switzerand. It was founded in 1998 as a merger among various newspapers: Journal de Geneve, Gazette de Lausanne and Le Nouveau Quotidien.
