Laughing All The Way From The Bank...

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Program:: 
Air date: 
Tue, 02/10/2015 - 10:00am to 10:15am
Interview with James Henry on The Swiss Whisk...

Here is the nut of it


"60 Minutes" reports in "The Swiss Leaks": "The largest and most damaging Swiss bank heist in history doesn't involve stolen money but stolen computer files with more than 100,000 names tied to Swiss bank accounts at HSBC, the second largest commercial bank in the world. A 37-year-old computer security specialist named Hervé Falciani stole the huge cache of data in 2007 and gave it to the French government. It's now being used to go after tax cheats all over the world. '60 Minutes', working with a group called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, obtained the leaked files. They show the bank did business with a collection of international outlaws: tax dodgers, arms dealers and drug smugglers -- offering a rare glimpse into the highly secretive world of Swiss banking."

But it gets better:

Hervé Falciani’s long, strange journey from bank computer expert to jailed fugitive to candidate for office to spokesman for whistleblowers
 
They almost had him.
 
On December 22, 2008, Swiss federal police handcuffed 36-year-old Hervé Falciani, a systems specialist they suspected of stealing data from HSBC Private Bank (Suisse), his employer, and trying to sell it to banks in Lebanon.  They seized his computer, searched his Geneva home and interrogated him for hours.
 
Then – on the condition that he return the next day for more questioning – they let him go.
 
And go he did.  Renting a car, Falciani picked up his wife and daughter and drove straight to France.  There he began downloading vast amounts of HSBC data that he had stored on remote servers and that has since been causing havoc for wealthy people the world over who use offshore accounts to hide money from taxation: client names and account holdings as well as notes about the bank’s conversations with them.
 
That day was the pivot point in a long, strange journey for Falciani, a colorful figure who has since moved from country to country on the lam from Swiss authorities – and possibly from criminal elements who mean him harm.  He presents himself as a whistleblower and has attracted wide media attention; he even ran unsuccessfully for the European Parliament.  He has been known to use an assumed identity, to wear disguises, and to appear in public with bodyguards.  He has been jailed – and indicted:  In December, the Swiss attorney general charged Falciani with data theft from HSBC, saying his intent was “cashing in.”
 
Falciani’s HSBC data trove ended up first in the hands of authorities in France, which then indicted London-based HSBC for illegal direct marketing to French nationals, money laundering and facilitating tax fraud.

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