Investigators allege that 180.6 billion euros passed through HSBC accounts held in Geneva by over 100,000 clients and 20,000
offshore companies 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 Hervé Falciani, Later he handed it to French authorities in late 2008.
Investigation in France In December 2008, Falciani was detained by Swiss authorities, who questioned him concerning suspected data theft. Released "overnight" by Swiss police, he fled with his family and the data files to France. On 20 January 2009, authorities in Nice initiated the search of the home Falciani's father, where he had been living. Five days earlier, HSBC itself had been charged in France for complicity in concealing fiscal fraud and illegal selling via its Swiss branch. 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 and the current king
Mohammed VI with an amount $9.1 million hidden in the HSBC bank.
International investigation Given the scale of the investigation,
Le Monde called upon 154 journalists 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 The top 10 countries involved, in terms of dollar amounts and number of clients in leaked Swiss files, are shown in the tables below. 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 requested that HSBC's Swiss private bank was sent to criminal trial over the suspected tax-dodging scheme for wealthy customers. The recommendation followed a lengthy investigation by local magistrates into alleged tax fraud involving 3,000 French taxpayers and was a procedural step that brought the Swiss banking arm one step closer to a possible trial in France. In November 2017,
HSBC 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 was a first in France under a new procedure that allowed 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. ==Media coverage==