Searches in the Geneva headquarters of the British banking group HSBC. The operation was triggered today as part of an investigation by the Swiss judiciary for aggravated money laundering and is led by the attorney general of the canton of Geneva, Olivier Jornot, assisted by the first attorney Yves Bertossa.
A press release from the Swiss judiciary states that the Prosecutor's Office has opened a judicial proceeding against the Bank following the recent ones revelations su HSBC Private Bank, at the center of a tax fraud and money laundering scandal linked to drugs and terrorist financing, unveiled on February 9 by theoperation SwissLeaks.
Swiss law provides that a bank can be prosecuted for aggravated money laundering if "it has not adopted all the necessary organizational measures to prevent these offenses from occurring internally". Furthermore, the investigation may be extended to "natural persons who will be suspected of having committed money laundering actions" or of having taken part in them.
The HSBC scandal was revealed by a group of international newspapers that investigated the data stolen by the former bank computer scientist Herve Falciani involving the accounts of more than 106 bank customers from 200 countries between November 2006 and March 2007. Also involved 7000 Italians, including well-known faces from entertainment and finance.
