to large financial institutions have caught on that it helped wealthy clients evade taxes. At the same time in the Swiss branch of HSBC bank account provided covert criminals, including drug traffickers and arms dealers.
Journalists from international consortium ICIJ conducted an investigation during which it became clear that one of the largest financial conglomerates in the world was engaged in illegal activities. The official website of the organization reported that the Swiss bank branch HSBC veil their rich clients and hide information about their income , including illegal.
The team of journalists from 45 countries opened secret bank accounts that were opened with a financial institution criminals involved in human trafficking, weapons and drugs. HSBC also hide information about income influential politicians, celebrities and officials who evade taxes.
These findings were made due to leakage of files from a banking institution. The largest bank used its closed system that stores information about customers and their vehicles worth more than $ 100 billion. Documents obtained in the investigation, show the relationship with clients who are engaged in illegal activities or hide from tax services hundreds of millions of dollars . Also in the HSBC accounts were opened in football and tennis stars, rock musicians, Hollywood actors, politicians and billionaires.
According to the investigation, the most money bank kept the Venezuelan government – about 12.6 billion . Also in the documents submitted by ICIJ have information about other countries and their officials, who, in turn, also wounded funds in a financial institution.
Note that HSBC is headquartered in London, and and 74 offices in other countries . The bank’s management was shocked scandal erupted, and insists that destroyed ICIJ published data. With this guide HSBC admits his guilt and accept responsibility for the illegal actions of the Swiss branch. According to them, the Geneva office was not fully integrated into the credit institution. The bank also said that since 2007, HSBC held a “radical transformation” and launched several initiatives to “ensure that the services are not used for tax evasion and money laundering”.
In this case, written statement of management Bank says that the credit institution for several years to carry out reforms, including those that could have been helping banks to monitor compliance with the tax laws. In this case, experts suggest that foreign credit institutions due to offshore harbor about 7.6 trillion dollars in taxes . “The offshore industry is a major threat to our democratic institutions,” – said the French economist Thomas Piketty. “Financial opacity is one of the key factors in the growth of global inequality. This allows you to hide a large part of the income of millionaires, who are hiding from taxes, while the rest of the population to pay more to finance public goods and services”.
Note, the credit institution is not the first time faced with such difficulties. Earlier in 2012, the bank HSBC, the defendant in the US in illegal financial transactions, has agreed to pay the US government $ 1.9 billion after providing evidence that the organization had laundered money through the Mexican drug traffickers .
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