スイスのジュネーブのHSBC(Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation)の元電脳技術者のHerve Falcianiの面談記事
DOMINGO/ ENTREVISTA
Hervé Falciani: “Estados Unidos me avisó: Ve a España, tu vida corre peligro”
EL PAÍS entrevista en exclusiva al exempleado del HSBC de Ginebra, y colaborador de la Justicia española
Manuel Altozano Madrid 21 ABR 2013 - 00:00 CET
SUNDAY / INTERVIEW
Hervé Falciani: "America told me: Go to Spain, your life is in danger"
COUNTRY exclusive interview ex-employee of HSBC Geneva, and collaborator of Spanish Justice
Manuel Hillock Madrid 21 ABR 2013 - 00:00 CET
Why did you come to Spain if he knew he had an international warrant for the arrest you?
- Because my life was in danger. United States shortly before had warned me that it would be easy for someone to pay to try to kill me. I had to plan my escape to the millimeter. And I chose Spain knowing that would go to jail and that Switzerland would request my extradition. Nothing has been casual.
Hervé Falciani (40 years) walks with his thumb his neck edge to edge to highlight the risk to be killed. The Franco-former employee of the headquarters of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation (HSBC) in Geneva has left behind the lumpy wig and black rimmed glasses with which he tried to hide his image during his trial for extradition to Switzerland last Monday. Been two days since, and Falciani is shown with its usual appearance, perhaps modified by a charming knob.
The meeting with the country-the first interview to Spanish half-occurs near the hideout in which remains from the second section of the High Court released him in December. The secret place from which collaborates closely together and every day with the anti-corruption prosecutor to continue betraying tax evaders. Hidden and protected to prevent any attack that can be perpetrated against him. Because Falciani has great enemies: the HSBC bank's fourth world by market-to whose system extracted between 2006 and 2008 130,000 customer accounts, the Swiss financial system, always jealous of their opacity, and thousands of suspected fraudsters which has reported since 2009, some with ties to major drug cartels, organized crime groups and terrorist organizations transnational character.
- What was the risk that alerted Washington?
The Americans offered me two dates to travel. They knew how judge was on duty
- On June 1, 2012, one month before arriving in Spain, I started to work again with the U.S. Justice from Paris. Americans warned me that the U.S. Senate would launch serious allegations against HSBC because of their lack of control over the money laundering and terrorist financing. That the bank was to be found guilty. I was told that from then on, my life would be endangered. I had two choices: start a new life in the United States or travel elsewhere to buy time. I was told that the only safe place in Europe would be Spain, which had successfully used my information in important cases like the Booty family. They thought Spain would be unlikely to approve my extradition to Switzerland. So, could continue working with the Justice.
- Spanish authorities probed before departure?
- I contacted some items.
- What elements?
- So I can not say, but I can imagine ...
The July 1, 2012, Falciani was arrested in the port of Barcelona, where he arrived on board a ship from Sète (France). Until now, it was believed that his arrest under an international arrest warrant issued by Berne, was casual. Police sources said that officers found him thanks to a routine check of documentation made the passage. His departure from France was a mystery. Because until then, remained Falciani refuge in his house Castellar, the last village on the French Riviera next to the Italian border, who fled on December 21, 2008 from Geneva. In between the two countries that have a passport and safe from extradition to Switzerland because neither France nor Italy give their citizens.
- He could have taken the car or the train and, once here, presented at the first police station instead of traveling by boat to Barcelona, why did not you?
- The ship was the safest way to jump the international arrest warrant issued by Switzerland against me. While traveling to the Schengen area, in the port of Sète asked me the passport since the boat out into international waters. That's what caused that, upon my arrival in Barcelona, Spanish police were waiting for me. As I stepped Spain was arrested.
- What was finished in a Spanish jail?
- The prison was safe. Americans initially proposed me two dates for travel, 1 to July 3 last year. In the end decided that I should take the boat on July 1. They knew to what judge would call upon my arrival. Which is more conducive to our strategy. On this basis it was decided my departure to Spain.
The U.S. agency with which, at the time, collaborated Falciani was the Justice Department of the U.S. government, according to sources at the National Court. The HSBC exemplado helped his officials to investigate the bank for which he worked from 2000 to 2008 as a systems technician while open research concluded a year earlier by the U.S. Senate. Two long weeks after his flight to Spain and arrested in Barcelona, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the House Homeland Security issued its conclusions.
It sparked the scandal. HSBC and its U.S. subsidiary, HBUS, had been neglected for years its money laundering controls, which allowed many of his clients launder funds from illicit activities. The Mexican subsidiary bank had transferred to U.S. dollars 7,000 million between 2007 and 2008, part of which came from the sale of drugs in the U.S. by cartels southern neighbor. The subcommittee also found your transactions with other banks in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh supposedly related to al Qaeda and terrorist organizations satellites and 25,000 transfers with Iran, Washington's archenemy.
The chief executive of HSBC, Stuart Gulliver, had to publicly apologize on October 29 and said to feel "shame" and "pain" for what happened. But that was not enough. The bank also was forced to provision 2,000 million to address any penalties as a result of that investigation, were imposed in the United States and other countries by facilitating money laundering. Something that could not have been achieved without the help of Falciani that, according to his lawyer, Joan Garcés, had actively collaborated with the U.S. Senate.
When the House released the document, the Franco-was already in jail Valdemoro, near Madrid. Safe, as he himself says. Only threatened by the demand for extradition from Switzerland, who accuses him of having tried to profit from its list of tax evaders. Falciani traveled to Lebanon on February 4, 2008 and was presented at the Audi Bank offices in Beirut, under the pseudonym Al-Chidiak Ruben. The Swiss government insists that his primary interest was economic. Maintains that wanted to sell the list and, as he did, then began to collaborate with the justice of different countries. Falciani, however, argues that, with that trip tried to provoke Swissbank alert, Swiss banking employers. This alarm went off a month later, in March, and indicated that such Al-Chidiak, had offered a number of databases Swiss bank customers, according to demand extradition of Bern. Falciani, however, was only questioned by the Swiss courts nine months later, on December 20. And the police released him after questioning. The next day, the Franco-leaves Switzerland and installed in Castellar.
- Did you ask for money for your data?
- I've never asked for anything for them. I only tried to help justice. I'm sick of hearing fabrications from Switzerland. Justice of that country said over and over I tried because it's the only way they accuse of espionage offense charged me. Only if I tried lucrarme show with my information could achacarme that crime.
- But could have.
- This is precisely why it makes no sense what you say Switzerland. The other day I read in a newspaper that Germany had paid four million euros for a disc with information evaders with Swiss bank accounts. I might sell them. Even now. Because without me, that data can not be used. And yet, I have not. The information I have provided is encrypted and secured. Thus, one can access it justice with my help. I did so for my own safety. And now I have proof.
- What evidence?
- Those that were exposed in the extradition trial. Until that was held on Monday, only had my word against HSBC. The trial has shown that I did not try to enrich myself, I've only wanted to collaborate with justice. So they kept both the Spanish tax as the French prosecutor, Eric de Montgolfier, who testified. Both made it clear that the pursuit of HSBC against me did not start with my trip to Lebanon, but at the time I started to collaborate with France. Now is the Spanish justice, and not only me, who has shown that I did not want to sell my information. The alert Swissbank about my trip to Beirut is March 2008, but the HSBC not file his claim against me until March 2009, when he knew I was already working with France. Was that what the bank wanted to avoid. To collaborate. It has also been proven that it was impossible that the Swiss courts deal with illegalities committed by their banks. They would not investigate despite my complaints.
The alleged fraudsters who deal with Swiss banks sent to countries to seek customers
For that reason has decided to speak. For now it is only he who keeps his version. The prosecutor of the Audiencia Nacional and French have defended in a court, the delivery to Switzerland, that his only intention was to collaborate. Corruption also, who worked since September 17, has been attached to the extradition proceedings a certificate which ensures that its cooperation with Spanish authorities is completely selfless. That does it for free.
Montgolfier, the French prosecutor to testify at the trial, is a key figure in the history of Falciani. The former chief prosecutor of Nice, currently assigned to the Court of Appeal of Bourges, was who first judicializó information provided by the former employee of HSBC. Is your number two which, on January 20, 2010, is presented in Castellar house computer in a police roadblock to stop and seize "a series of stolen personal data" claiming Swiss justice. Falciani explains the French prosecutor and the agents who are at home, in fact, what you are looking Bern are the identities of thousands of tax evaders are in his possession. Montgolfier, of the importance of the discovery - "the information would fill several freight trains," he said on Monday at trial, open their own investigation against fraudsters.
Hervé Falciani, in 2009.
Led by Montgolfier, Falciani began collaborating with the Gendarmerie to decrypt your list. And France, after some hesitation, decides not to return to the Swiss authorities. Nicolas Sarkozy's government sends copies to countries with which it has tried to tax cooperation, including Spain. Treasury receives the May 24 of that year. Started "most regularization Spain's history," as recalled at the trial of Carlos Ocaña Monday, Secretary of State for Finance in the government of Zapatero, speaking as a witness in the case. Of the 1,500 names that sends France, Treasury identifies 659. So recovers 260 million euros to the tax allegedly evaded. The list contains names like Santander's President Emilio Botin and his family. Also the Catalan businessman Manuel Lao. Or a society of Francisco Correa, the ringleader of the plot Gürtel and his accomplice and former mayor of Boadilla, Arturo González Panero.
- Can you give me some Spanish names on your list?
- No. No way. Much has been Falciani list, but the data I have provided are not just lists of evaders. The information I have shows that Swiss banks are waging an economic war. They are the enemy. And this is an enemy that is not static but dynamic. Fits any directive against tax evasion or money laundering to continue to box. Furthermore, different network operating in tax havens.
Now Spanish justice is not just me who has shown that I did not charge for my information
- Are you saying that Swiss banks systematically skip the rules ...
- In this adaptation of banks to the limits imposed on them plays a critical role technology. Each time you see a new rule or policy creates a new strategic plan to get around it. No experts on these justice technology projects will be unable to develop their own strategy against fraud. That's where I can help out.
- What works now with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor?
- Work on the issue of intermediaries from the system. These are people who dedicate themselves to attract customers for Swiss banks in Spain, France, Italy, Germany ... The alleged fraudsters deal with them to get in touch with Swiss banks. With European rescue Cyprus, many of them are now trying to recruit Russian citizens who had their money in that tax haven. He also helped Spain and France in the creation of a multidisciplinary body dedicated to monitoring tax evasion and money laundering with people who have similar technological knowledge to mine.
Falciani, however, has suffered to get here the detention, imprisonment, separation from his wife and son ... Has it worth it?
- Now I could live peacefully in America. Why not accept your offer?
- America can help us in this fight, but we can not let all this work in your hands. France, Spain, Europe in general, they also have to fight this war. Because it is the ordinary people who are suffering the consequences.
France sends another 2,500 accounts
The investigation by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor on evaders who listed Falciani is growing. For the 1,500 names of the initial ratio of 2010, among whom were family Booty, the recently judged Euphemianus doping doctor Fuentes, the ringleader of the plot Gürtel, Francisco Correa, or the former mayor of Boadilla del Monte (Madrid) Arturo González Panero, accused in the same case-joined last April 4 2,508 other accounts provided also by France with the cooperation of Falciani with that country. Anticorruption already analyzing all that information and, with the help of former employees of HSBC, is to detect new millionaire tax evaders with debts to the Spanish State.
The first 1,500 names submitted by Paris were received at the Tax Office on May 26, 2010. It was the financial adviser of the French Embassy, at the end of last year, had been in contact with the then Director General of Inland Revenue, Luis Pedroche, as stated on the last Monday in the extradition trial of Falciani in the High Court. It then compared these accounts with the Treasury had open investigations on some of those account holders in HSBC Geneva, we identified 659 suspected fraudsters Spanish. In total, the amount recovered, said Carlos Ocaña in the extradition trial of Falciani-Secretary of State for Finance then, amounted to 260 million euros. However, the sums made safe in the Swiss bank, according Ocaña, by these fraudsters could amount to 6,000 million.
These are the first 1,500 names driving the French Justice Ministry. France took excerpts from the national list of countries with which it has signed cooperation agreements on tax matters, such as Spain, Italy, United Kingdom and Germany, and sent them to their respective Governments. The new list has just won Spain is that developed by the French gendarmerie after the French prosecutor Eric de Montgolfier, following a request from the Swiss courts, ordered Falciani detain and interrogate and search their homes Castellar, where had taken refuge on December 21, 2008 running from Geneva. During the entry of agents in your home, the Franco-made available to the prosecution of Nice and the Gendarmerie all your information. And worked for months with the Institute of Criminal Investigation French police force. In that list, according to research, people and societies are 2,508 Spanish or activity in our country.
Anticorruption Collaboration with Falciani began on 17 September when the state attorney general, Eduardo Torres-Dulce, ordered the opening of a research errands, so the computer began to work side by side with the prosecution while still was in prison. New accounts sent by France respond to letters rogatory sent in October to the judicial authorities of that country in the context of these proceedings of Corruption.
Falciani information is like a puzzle that only he can solve, so that their cooperation is indispensable. Data on each of HSBC accounts are scattered in different columns and encrypted with a complex security system designed by the bank. Once decrypted, next to each name listed dozens of figures. Each corresponds to a different balance: trusts, proxies, brokers, front companies ..., leading to the same owner.
Falciani also advises the Office on the figure of managers gathered in the Swiss banking law. It is outside the bank staff dedicated to attracting overseas customers. They serve for the institution to open accounts without asking about the origin of the money, because, in the event that the funds come from illegal activities such as drug trafficking, are the managers who assume liability for such conduct. Corruption, by Falciani, has already detected some of these agents operating in Spain and that are related to open investigations in the National Court.
So, how important Franco-information is not only the name of the natural or legal persons with accounts at HSBC. Also the complexity of the bank's computer system. Researchers believe that the methods of this entity could be extrapolated to the entire Swiss banking.
日曜日/ INTERVIEW
エルヴェFalcianiは:"アメリカは私に言った:スペインに移動し、あなたの人生は危険にさらされている"
COUNTRY独占インタビューHSBCジュネーブの元従業員、およびスペイン正義のコラボ
マヌエル丘マドリード21 ABR 2013 - 00:00 CET
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