Over 100 customers, including 7 Italians, and 20 offshore companies would have a total of 180,6 billion euros subtracted from the tax authorities between 9 November 2006 and 31 March 2007 thanks to the complicity of Swiss private banking branch of the British HSBC, the second largest banking group in the world. The news is the result of an investigation conducted between Paris, Washington, Brussels and Geneva by a pool of journalists from 45 newspapers, including the English The Guardian, the French Le Monde and the British BBC. The investigations cover the period 2005-2007.
The list of alleged tax evaders includes arms and drug traffickers, financiers of terrorist organizations, politicians, industrialists, sovereigns (such as the king of Morocco Mohammed VI and that of Jordan Abdallah) and sports stars (such as Fernando Alonso) and entertainment (such as John Malkovich, Christian Slater, Elle MacPherson, Phil Collins e Tina Turner). Among the best-known Italian names, those of the designer appear Valentino, of Flavio Briatore need Valentino Rossi. This was revealed by L'Espresso, which publishes the so-called “Lista Falciani”, the archive of the former HSBC banker Hervè Falciani.
All those involved were allegedly "encouraged" by the HSBC executive committee to hide their money in offshore facilities based in Panama or in the British Virgin Islands. Over 5,7 billion would have been hidden by the Bank in tax havens only on behalf of French customers.
HSBC has admitted the errors of its Swiss branch: "We assume responsibility for past failures with respect to control rules and procedures", explains the Bank in a note, specifying that the Swiss subsidiary was not fully incorporated by the group after the purchase in 1999 and that therefore levels of compliance with the rules are "significantly lower" than the standards.
The "Falciani list” had been handed over in 2010 to other countries so that they could prosecute any tax evaders. Thanks to these documents, the United Kingdom managed to recover 135 million euros, Spain 220 million and France 188 million. The list is also the basis of many investigations for fraud against Italian VIPs, but many have appealed arguing that the dossier could not be used.
