Contents

The UK’s global network of offshore secrecy jurisdictions and tax havens under British jurisdiction which allow criminal cash to flood into London property.

Many of the criminal corporate activities within the City of London which have dominated the headlines over the past decade are not classified as corruption by Transparency International.  Instead, the media and financial regulators refer to these institutionalised corporate crimes as "inappropriate conduct" or “mis-selling”.

When a mafia expert Roberto Saviano tells us Britain is the most corrupt country in the world, it's time to start listening. In London, the financial mafia don't take out death warrants on truth tellers, but powerful financial firms will destroy the lives and reputations of whistleblowers. 

 

The purpose of HSBC is to launder money.https://archive.is/ElvIm

"Corruption is made possible by the actions of global facilitators."

THERE IS NO BANK SUPERVISION BECAUSE

THE GOV'T IS BY THE 1% OF THE 1% AND FOR THE 1%

THEY CAN STASH THE CASH IN OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS

HSBC BANK: SECRET ORIGINS TO LAUNDERING THE WORLD'S DRUG MONEY 2/16/15

 

2/27/2015 Jon Stewart used a case about an HSBC whistleblower
to go after the Obama White House for its repeated prosecution of whistleblowers under the Espionage Act.  Stewart went over the many uses of the Espionage Act by the White House, and while he mistakenly believed whistleblowers are normally rewarded with “ten million dollars and unlimited blowjobs,” it turns out that they actually get in trouble.  He cited a few examples of whistleblowers getting in trouble, including the one that involved Fox News reporter James Rosen, and one whistleblower who was prosecuted for trying to reveal what the NSA’s up to. No, not that one, the other one.
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/pvcjoh/blazing-tattles (aired 26-Feburary-2015)

BAnKSTERS IN THE 
Panama Papers

The Companies -   HSBC, RBS, Societe Generale, UBS and Credit Suisse.

​To be sure, there is nothing illegal about operating in offshore jurisdictions and there can be legitimate reasons for having subsidiaries in low-tax countries. The banks also say they exercise proper due diligence when taking on new clients. (Mossack Fonsecat told the ICIJ it too conducts through due diligence of its clients.)
HSBC's Monaco-based and Swiss units asked Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the heart of the affair, to set up offshore companies for clients, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. According to HSBC's annual report, the bank has more than a hundred different entities operating in countries deemed by the OECD as offshore tax havens. Units of Credit Suisse, UBS, Societe Generale and Royal Bank of Scotland also get a mention in the documents released by the ICIJ. A quick cross reference to the banks' accounts shows dozens of subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates operating across a handful of havens. All figures are based on information disclosed in the companies' latest annual statements. For HSBC and Societe Generale, the figure includes subsidiaries, associates and joint ventures. RBS also includes active entities that are 100% owned but not consolidated and inactive or dormant entities. Credit Suisse and UBS disclose subsidiaries only. Offshore tax havens are as defined by the OECD.
https://panamapapers.icij.org/blog/20160403-mossack-fonseca-response-icij.html

2017  Ramon Fonseca, founding partner of law firm Mossack Fonseca, arrested - arrives at the Public Ministry office for the Odebrecht corruption case in Panama City on Thursday.

Danish Bank Under Probe in France Over Magnitsky Money-Laundering Danske Bank says French judge is investigating $17.8 million of transactions. A French judge is investigating Danske Bank A/S for allegedly laundering stolen Russian money identified by deceased whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, according to a former hedge-fund manager leading an international campaign for sanctions against Russia. Bill Browder said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that French judge Renaud van Ruyrnbeke is investigating Denmark’s biggest lender after he provided details of the lender’s involvement in laundering money from a tax fraud Mr. Magnitsky exposed in Moscow. 

Magnitsky Act: Trump Jr. says law was at center of meeting with Russian lawyer

2015 Nordea says to end association with law firm Mossack Fonseca Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority has contacted authorities in Luxembourg for information related to allegations that Nordea, the Nordic region’s biggest bank, helped some clients set up accounts in offshore tax havens.

What Really Irritates Vladimir Putin? The Magnitsky Act Congress wanted to punish Russian human rights abusers by barring them from entering the U.S. This followed the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died at age 37 in a Moscow prison where he was held — and allegedly beaten — after accusing Russian officials of massive tax fraud.

Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin

The Russian Laundromat - Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project Our goal is to help the people of the region better understand how organized crime and corruption affect their lives.

HSBC's corporate structure includes dozens of entities located in offshore tax havens. 
HSBC sold its Panama bank in 2013
There's some evidence the banks are already overhauling their tangled corporate structures. HSBC sold its Panama bank in 2013. Credit Suisse also recently sold its Gibraltar and Monaco private-banking operations. 
The tax havens too may be moving in the direction of greater transparency: the OECD's original blacklist of about three dozen "uncooperative" tax havens in 2000 dwindled to zero in the space of a decade as more countries agreed to share information. But Panama, Liechtenstein and Barbados were still included in a European Union list of uncooperative tax havens last year.
How integral tax havens have become to the global banking system. Major banks have corporate entities in broad range of offshore jurisdictions.

1% HSBC
RULING FAMILIES

 

The constellation of whistleblowers surrounding HSBC Bank, HSBC and the Five Whistleblowers.   HSBC has yet to be brought to book in any serious way for a litany of transgressions in multiple jurisdictions. NICHOLAS WILSON AND THE HBC BLUES

HSBC files whistleblower Hervé Falciani: 'This money comes from mafia, drug traffickers, blood diamonds and tax evasion'

HSBC should face UK criminal charges, says former public prosecutor Lord Ken Macdonald QC says HMRC’s decision not to prosecute bank over Swiss revelations was ‘seriously legally flawed’

Lord Shelbourne launched the Chinese opium trade in 1783 with Scottish merchants from the East India Company and members of the House of Windsor-allied Knights of St. John Jerusalem.

HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver sheltered £5m of his own money at Panamanian company with Swiss HSBC account 

The HSBC ruling families have intertwining interests with other international mega-banks, the global gold and diamond trade and the Anglo/Dutch half of the Four Horsemen – Royal Dutch/Shell and BP Amoco.

Lord Armstrong of Ilminster sits on the boards of Royal Dutch/Shell, N. M. Rothschild & Sons, Rio Tinto Zinc and Inchcape, the holding company that controls PONC.  Shell director Sir Peter Orr joins Lord Armstrong on Inchape‘s board.  Cathay Pacific Airlines owner Sir John Swire is a director at Shell, while Shell director Sir Peter Baxendell joins Lord Armstrong on the board of the Matheson-founded and Oppenheimer-controlled Rio Tinto. [10] Shell also controls BHP Billiton.

Shanghai Settlements veteran and HSBC insider William Johnston Keswick sits on the board of BP Amoco with PONC’s #2 man Sir Eric Drake, who joins Rio Tinto board member Sir Mark Turner on the board of Kleinwort Benson, which owns 49% of the Sharp’s Pixley Hong Kong gold monopoly.  Turner joins David Keswick on the board of HSBC’s Samuel Montagu, one of five firms who gather daily at N. M. Rothschild & Sons in London to “fix” the price of gold.

Jardine Matheson’s current chairman David Newbigging sits on the international advisory board at JP Morgan Chase and is arguably Hong Kong’s most powerful man.  The Chairman of Morgan et Cie, the bank’s international division is Lord Cairncatto who also sits on the London Committee of HSBC.  Cairncatto is also chairman of Morgan Grenfell, which in 1989 was purchased by Deutsche Bank.  Cairncatto sits on the Ruling Council at the London-based Royal Institute for International Affairs- the Crown-controlled foreign policy think tank, whose US affiliate is the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jardine Matheson and PONC also have interlocking directorates and originate from the same Mackay family.  Jardine founder James Sutherland Matheson was the son of Katherine Mackay.  Mackay is the family name of the Earls of Inchcape.  The current Chairman of PONC is Sir Hugh Mackay-Tallack, who is also Deputy Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank.  The 3rd Earl of Inchcape J. W. Mackay is a director at Standard Chartered.  His predecessor, the 2nd Earl of Inchcape, had advocated opium trafficking in a 1923 PONC annual report.

In 2006, when controversy swirled over the potential sale of US port operations to Dubai firm DP World, virtually no media attention was paid to the current contractor – PONC.  Today the old opium transport firm has split into two parts.  P&O NedLloyd, the shipping arm, was bought by AP Meller-Maersk, the massive Danish shipping firm controlled by the billionaire Maersk family.  P&O, the port operator arm, was bought in 2006 by DP World.  Each arm had controlled part interest in the Port of New York.  In 2007 it was announced that its port operations would be sold to insurance giant AIG. The next year AIG went belly up.

HSBC has a big presence in Vancouver, which is on the receiving end of most US-bound Southeast Asian heroin.  Canada’s Hudson Bay Company is controlled by P&O NedLloyd and the Keswick family that controls Jardine Matheson.  P&O’s #2 man Sir Eric Drake sits on the board at Hudson Bay, while HSBC and Jardine Matheson director Henry Neville Lindley Keswick sits on the board of Canadian paper giant MacMillan Bloedel, which the British Duke of Devonshire controls.

Beginning in the early 1990’s HSBC went on a global shopping spree.  In 1994 HSBC formed HongKong Bank Malaysia Berhad.  In 1997 it formed Brazilian subsidiary Banco HSBC Bamarindus S.A. and acquired Argentina’s Roberts S.A. de Inversiones.  In 1999 it bought Malta’s biggest commercial bank. [11]

In 2000 it has acquired France’s CCF, Turkey’s Demirbank TES and the Egyptian British Bank.  In 2002 it bought Mexico’s Grupo Financiero Bital S.A. de C.V. and Turkey’s Benkar Turketici Finansmani ve Kart Hizmetleri A.S.  It took over Bank of Bermuda and acquired stakes in China’s Ping An Insurance, India’s UTI Bank and China’s Bank of Communications. [12]

By 2003 HSBC was the world’s second largest bank.  In November 2003 the bank’s Istanbul, Turkey headquarters was destroyed in a suicide bombing.  A separate bombing that same day killed the British consul general.

In 2005 HSBC bought Household International, a dirty Chicago bank which researcher Sherman Skolnick says was incarnated out of the remnants of Australia’s Nugan Hand Bank. [13]  Household is a subprime mortgage lender and was intimately involved in creating the US property bubble.

How the House of Lords Mixes Politics and Business
http://www.4-traders.com/JARDINE-MATHESON-HOLDINGS-6491154/news/How-the-House-of-Lords-Mixes-Politics-and-Business-2-19371206/

After disclosing her Huawei role, Baroness Wheatcroft said the company "is playing a major role in the infrastructure of this country and is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world." She added: "Huawei is demonstrating ably how the U.K. and China can cooperate." Baroness Wheatcroft, a former editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe, said her role at Huawei ended in August. She declined to detail her duties there and said her comments in the debate didn't violate the prohibition on speaking on behalf of a private entity because she was "not speaking on their behalf. I was speaking on my own behalf."  
Charles Powell--Lord Powell of Bayswater--is an adviser or director for four defense contractors, a gold miner, luxury-goods maker LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and a subsidiary of conglomerate Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd.
"Can I talk to government on behalf of Jardine Matheson?" he asks. "That is perfectly appropriate," he said, in cases where he feels a foreign government might be treating one of his companies unfairly and a U.K. official might be able to intervene.  Outside ties sometimes come up in debates about rules governing financial services. In an Oct. 14 debate, Howard Flight, a lord, decried as "completely out of control" anti-money-laundering rules requiring banks to monitor transactions of "politically exposed persons," or PEPs, for possible corruption. Lord Flight is a director of at least eight financial-services firms. "Wearing a hat as a banker," he said during the debate, "I would add that, worst of all, banks are required to look at every transaction in the account of a PEP, both in and out."  The House of Lords has grappled before with questions about paid advocacy. The Sunday Times in 2009 reported four lords appeared willing to be hired to influence legislation by undercover reporters posing as lobbyists. Two were suspended, and the new ethics commissioner was appointed.  That ethics cop periodically sanctions members for code violations, although penalties can be light.  After David Maclean became Lord Blencathra in 2011, he signed a GBP12,000-per-month contract to be a Cayman Islands' lobbyist. A report by the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism triggered an inquiry. Lord Blencathra told the ethics commissioner he didn't intend to lobby. The commissioner determined he broke the rules.  The sanction: an apology.

Hervé Falciani: HSBC leaks just the tip of the iceberg

Hervé Falciani is the man behind the largest leak in banking history. In this interview, filmed in February 2014), he told the British filmmaker Nick Francis why he had little choice but to become a whistleblower after he discovered that the board of directors of his employer, HSBC, was allegedly complicit in the facilitation of money-laundering and tax evasion for dodgy customers. Falciani says that what tipped him over the edge was that the HSBC board, chaired by Sir John Bond from 1998-2006 and Lord Stephen Green in 2006-10, was not prepared to lift a finger to stop the bank from being used as a vessel to hide $500bn of assets which “were not supposed to be there” (i.e. dirty money, including the proceeds of crime, the drugs trade, cash from blood diamonds trafficking, and funds that customers were seeking to squirrel away from the tax man). ianfraser.org/herve-falciani-the-franco-italian-whistleblower-who-rumbled-hsbc/

 

The HSBC Building is a six-floor neo-classical building in the Bund area of Shanghai, China.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
HSBC started On 4 March 1865,  when Hong Kong was a colony of the British Empire. It is the founding member of the HSBC Group. It opened its Shanghai branch on the ground floor of the Central Hotel (now Peace Hotel) on the corner of the Bund with Nanjing Road.   By 1874, HSBC's business had grown so much that the existing premises was becoming cramped. The bank then purchased the Foreign Club, a three-storey building at number 12, the Bund, south of the Customs House, for 60,000 taels of silver.  In 1912, the bank made further acquisitions at number 10 and number 11, the Bund, and began construction of the new building. Construction began on 5 May 1921, with the dome capped off on 23 June 1923. According to contemporary press reports, at the time of construction the bank hired feng shui masters to select the time and direction of the first excavation. In accordance with Chinese tradition, coins from around the world were buried in the foundations. Specially minted coins were placed in dark recesses of the building to ward off spirits. The construction took 25 months, and the completed building occupied 1.3 hectares, with an area of 23,415 m². The architect's firm, Palmer & Turner, also designed numerous other buildings on the Bund including the Yokohama Specie Building, Yangtze Insurance Building, and Bank of China Building.

It was the headquarters of the Shanghai branch of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation from 1923 to 1955. 
In 1935, the government of the Republic of China started restructuring the Central Bank, Bank of China and Bank of Communications. Bank of China, whose stocks were 80% publicly owned, became the target of plunder by various powers. It was forced to add RMB 15 million government stocks, making its total capital RMB 40 million, half public and half government owned. With this, the control fell into the hands of the government and THUG  T. V. Soong became chairman of Bank of China.

HBSC OWNS LONDON

Billion Pound HSBC Fraud Government Cover-Up

 

Israel's taxman investigating 8,000 accounts at HSBC in Switzerland more than 8,000 Israeli customers that held bank accounts at the Swiss arm of HSBC. Israel ranked sixth among 203 countries whose citizens were customers, with 6,554 Israelis holding accounts worth $10 billion. The authority has offered immunity from criminal prosecution by anyone who comes forward to report an account abroad. It has so far received 5,360 requests worth 18.6 billion shekels ($5 billion).

3/2/15 Death, drugs, and HSBC How fraudulent blood money makes the world go round
https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/death-drugs-and-hsbc-355ed9ef5316
Recent reporting on illegal tax evasion by the world’s second largest bank, HSBC, opens a window onto the pivotal role of Western banks in facilitating organised crime, drug-trafficking and Islamist terrorism. Governments know this, but they are powerless to act, not just because they’ve been bought by the banks: but because criminal and terror financing is integral to global capitalism. Now one whistleblower who uncovered an estimated billion pounds worth of HSBC fraud in Britain, suppressed by the British media, is preparing a prosecution that could blow wide open the true scale of criminal corruption in the world’s finance capital.  Following revelations that the Swiss banking arm of HSBC — the world’s second largest bank — was engaged in massive fraudulent tax-evasion relating to assets totaling $100 billion, Peter Oborne dropped an unexpected bombshell.  The veteran journalist exposed how one of Britain’s leading national broadsheets, The Telegraph, refused to cover the HSBC scandal to protect its corporate advertising revenues. The increasing encroachment of corporate power on The Telegraph’s editorial decisions was among the factors, Oborne said, that led him to resign from his position as chief political commentator at the paper.  But the latest HSBC scandal, and The Telegraph’s belatedly selective reporting of it, barely scratch the surface of the enormous power wielded by Britain’s biggest bank at the expense of the British public.  The scale of tax-evasion in the HSBC Swiss leaks case amounts to hundreds of millions of pounds.  Another far worse case of HSBC fraud totalling an estimated £1 billion, closer to home and premised on the bank’s ability to prey on unsuspecting British shoppers, has been systematically covered up by regulators, police, law firms, the government and much of the UK media.

“HFC/HSBC and the Financial Conduct Authority have been caught red handed, and Wilson accuses them of colluding to cover up a £1 billion fraud. He says that, if the bank was to be obliged to compensate the 500,000–600,000 people it has allegedly fleeced, it would need to pay them an average of £1,500 (with interest) each.”

 

HSBC, the world's third largest bank and its 6th largest company,
has paid a record $1.92 billion settlement after U.S. investigators found that it spent years committing serious crimes involving money laundering for Mexican drug cartels, moving tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups and for nations like Iran. Those investigations even uncovered substantial evidence "that senior bank officials were complicit in the illegal activity."

 

MR ETHICAL ‏@nw_nicholas

USING PIRATE BANK HSBC AND 1% SECRETS ARE PROTECTED

Economist says bankers don't affect politics, then publish this.HSBC basically dictates Tory and BBC policy

See what happened at the Treasury Select Committee

#BBC Wow!! #HSBC $1,OOO,OOO,OOO ( ONE BILLION DOLLARS) CONSERVATIVE PARTY DAVID CAMERON

  • Britain's biggest bank #HSBC fined £28m in Switzerland for money laundering. Nothing on BBC news. Head of BBC is an HSBC director
  • How come the wife of BBC DG's firm got £36k for "recruiting" HSBC director to BBC? #HSBCfraud http://nicholaswilson.com/smoking-gun/
  • Mr Ethical ‏@nw_nicholas
    According to @TonyGosling BBC staff were ordered not to report Fairhead had been sued in US for laundering. Have done FOI request. #HSBC
    How the election was won – fraud and corruptio
  • If you want to know why Wheatley has been dismissed watch this TSC hearing. Inexcusable & embarrassing to Cameron
  • Nicholas Wilson: I am not an MP, a CEO or media baron. I'm more powerful than all of them because I'm honest.
    John Rogers interviews Nicholas Wilson who has exposed £1 billion fraud by HSBC which he claims has been covered-up by the Tory Government and the BBC with possible involvement of the Intelligence Services. HSBC can't threaten BBC with advertising revenue, so they put director in charge.

 

HSBC BACKGROUND

HSBC files: Swiss bank hid money for suspected criminals Documents detail customers who faced allegations including drug-running, corruption, doping and money laundering.


Part 1 The leak Part 2 The cash machine Part 3 The tax vehicle Part 4 The political donors Part 5 The unsavoury clients
HSBC now admits that after it purchased the Geneva bank in 1999 “too many … high-risk accounts were maintained” and the “compliance culture and standard of due diligence” were low.  The bank refused to discuss the details of individual clients, but said it had taken action to address the problems.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/12/hsbc-files-swiss-bank-hid-money-for-suspected-criminals

HSBC files timeline: from Swiss bank leak to fallout

HSBC is 'cast-iron certain' to breach banking rules again, executive admits
Bank’s global head of sanctions told monitors in private meeting that HSBC’s size made large-scale regulatory breaches a virtual inevitability. Global head of sanctions Lee Hale said gaps remained in the bank’s compliance with sanctions policies and the screening of certain financial transactions.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/02/hsbc-cast-iron-certain-breach-rules-executive

 

I am exposing one of the biggest banking frauds in UK history. The BBC is not interested. The BBC is run by a banker. #HSBC @nw_nicholas

You couldn't make it up. #HSBC
non-exec Rachel Lomax also chairs #Serco 'corporate responsibility committee' !
http://www.hsbc.com/about-hsbc/leadership/jr-lomax

Tunisia objects to HSBC settlement in Geneva
Tunisia has filed an objection to HSBC's agreement to pay 40 million Swiss francs ($43 million) to settle a money laundering investigation at its Swiss private bank, a lawyer representing the North African country.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0PF0KX20150706

HSBC accused of incompetence by MPs 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31799405
HSBC executives have been accused by MPs of incompetence for saying they were unaware of tax evasion activities in their Swiss private bank. Chris Meares, the ex-head of HSBC's private banking division, said he didn't know what staff "were up to".  "Either you're completely incompetent in your oversight duties or you knew about it," said Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair Margaret Hodge.  Ms Hodge also called for ex-HSBC risk chair Rona Fairhead to quit the BBC.  Ms Fairhead took over as chair of the BBC Trust last year, but before that she was chair of HSBC's audit committee until 2010 and subsequently led the bank's risk committee.

HSBC Ordered to Pay $1.1 Billion in Bail in French Tax Probe
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-09/hsbc-ordered-to-pay-1-1-billion-in-bail-as-part-of-french-probe
HSBC Holdings Plc must pay a 1 billion-euro ($1.1 billion) bail after being charged in a French criminal probe into tax evasion at its private bank, three months after the same unit drew fresh scrutiny in the U.K.
French President Francois Hollande has increased efforts to punish tax evasion since his former Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac was forced to resign after his secret Swiss account was exposed. UBS Group AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, was forced to pay a 1.1 billion-euro security deposit last year to cover potential penalties in a separate French tax-evasion probe after its appeals failed. Judges estimated the Zurich-based bank helped French taxpayers hide about 9.8 billion euros.
HSBC on Wednesday was informed it was placed under formal criminal investigation regarding its private bank’s conduct in 2006 and 2007. The move came five months after HSBC’s Swiss unit was charged and ordered to post a 50 million-euro bail.

HISTORY OF HSBC STARTS WITH OPIUM DRUG SMUGGLING PIRATES AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED. 

Private Bank Secrets Revealed

3/23/15 HSBC private bank deal boosts inflows at Liechtenstein's LGT 

Net profits at LGT, Liechtenstein's biggest bank, rose more than 18 percent last year, the bank reported on Monday, after it attracted fresh funds and acquired a large portfolio of accounts from HSBC's private bank. The Vaduz-based lender, owned by the principality's royal family, said last year it was buying from HSBC $12.5 billion of private banking assets that the British bank wanted to offload to reduce the size of its wealth management arm.

The Liechtenstein ruling house is an old Austrian family. The principality was created in 1719 by uniting the county of Vaduz with the barony of Schellenburg. The princes, vassals of the Holy Roman emperors, also owned huge estates (many times larger than their principality) in Austria and adjacent territories; they rarely visited their country but were active in the service of the Hapsburg monarchy. Liechtenstein became independent in 1866, after having been a member of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866. In 2004 Prince Alois became regent for his father and assumed responsibility for the everyday affairs of state. The 2008 Liechtenstein tax affair is a series of tax investigations in numerous countries whose governments suspect that some of their citizens may have evaded tax obligations by using banks and trusts in Liechtenstein; The informant also had sold data to the government of the United States. After the affair broke open, Senator Carl Levin, chairman of a senate investigations committee, indicated his intention to probe to what degree American citizens have used the LGT bank to evade taxes.[17] In July 2008 the U.S. Subcommittee determined that the offshore tax haven saved $100 billion per year for the U.S. taxpayer. Specifically mentioned were Switzerland's UBS AG and Liechtenstein's LGT Group. The report indicates that the LGT Group contributed to a "culture of secrecy and deception". According to the report UBS holds 1,000 declared accounts versus 19,000 that are not declared to the IRS. The report recommended a number of steps including tighter regulations for financial institutions.[

HSBC's Swiss private bank has been at the center of a media storm after client data and other documents were leaked last month which suggested the unit might have helped wealthy clients dodge taxes in a period up to 2007. HSBC has admitted past compliance failures but has said the business has since been overhauled. LGT was one of the first major banks to be caught up in an international clampdown on tax evasion, suffering a client exodus in 2008 and 2009 after it featured in a U.S. Senate report on tax evasion. Since then the principality, wedged between Switzerland and Austria, has taken steps to dispel its image as a tax haven and reposition itself as a legitimate financial center and LGT has seen positive net inflows of assets for the past five years. LGT said on Monday its net profit rose last year to 165 million Swiss francs ($169 million) from 139.2 million francs in 2013, with revenue rising nearly 13 percent to 1.01 billion francs. Gross assets under management rose by 20 percent last year to 128.8 billion francs. Valuation gains boosted the total by 7.1 billion francs while net asset inflows added another 7.1 billion francs. The bank then took in another 7.3 billion francs of inflows at the beginning of December from the private banking portfolios acquired from HSBC's Swiss bank.

HSBC's Swiss private bank brought step closer to criminal trial in France
French prosecutor formally requests trial France’s financial state prosecutor recommends that Swiss bank be sent to criminal trial over tax allegations. The bank now has one month to respond after which French magistrates will take the final decision on whether to hold a trial.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/13/hsbc-swiss-private-bank-criminal-trial-request-france

Lord Green headed HSBC at the height of its wrongdoing. He must face MPs, writes UK MP Austin Mitchell  #SwissLeaks
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/10/lord-green-hsbc-wrongdoing-must-face-mps

A team of journalists from 45 countries has unearthed secret bank accounts maintained for criminals, traffickers, tax dodgers, politicians and celebrities.
http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks
see http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/banking-giant-hsbc-sheltered-murky-cash-linked-dictators-and-arms-dealers

Meet the Real "Housewives" of HSBC! Not always the most accurate listed profession in the #SwissLeaks data
http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/real-housewives-hsbc
Housewives accounted for more than 7,300 of the clients listed by profession in HSBC’s files, outweighing two other categories that suggest no paid compensation. “Without profession” and “student” together added up to fewer than 4,000.

 

WHAT TO DO ABOUT GRAND CORRUPTION?
The banking giant HSBC was outed by an international consortium of journalists for having systematically helped wealthy clients hide billions of dollars in assets, thus avoiding international tax police and criminal investigations.  The journalists did their job. Now what?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/world/europe/what-to-do-about-grand-corruption.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

 

The Drug Money Laundering Business has been historic since the inception of HSBC founded as the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank.

OF COURSE THE 5 EYE SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM KNOWS ALL THE TRANSACTIONS - YET IS NEVER USED TO ARREST THEIR FRIENDS.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/25/nsa_boss_encryption_backdoors/?mt=1424884990907

It's Time to Break Up the NSA
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2014/02/its_time_to_break_up.html
The NSA has become too big and too powerful. What was supposed to be a single agency with a dual mission—protecting the security of U.S. communications and eavesdropping on the communications of our enemies—has become unbalanced in the post-Cold War, all-terrorism-all-the-time era.  Putting the U.S. Cyber Command, the military's cyberwar wing, in the same location and under the same commander, expanded the NSA's power. The result is an agency that prioritizes intelligence gathering over security, and that's increasingly putting us all at risk. It's time we thought about breaking up the National Security Agency.

NEWS ARTICLES

 

HSBC’s Money Laundering Nightmare (1): Mossack Fonseca
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/hsbcs-money-laundering-nightmare-1-mossack-fonseca.html
The Panamanian Setup - HSBC’s CEO Stuart Gulliver and Chairman Douglas Flint put in an appearance in front of the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday 25th February. As usual with these banker-bashing shindigs, the session was tense, with plenty of pointed questions and tortured responses that one could spend weeks parsing.

Banks could be deluged with customer payout claims.  by Lewis Panther ( 1st March 2015 – Sunday Mirror – Print Edition )
http://legalbeagles.info/mirror-hsbc-face-new-loans-store-cards-scandal/

HSBC is facing a potential flood of claims from hard-up customers who were hit with unfair charges by one of the banks subsidiaries.  
Fees charged for defaults on loans from HFC were subject to a clampdown by trading watchdogs five years ago.  Now people who paid hundreds, or even thousands of pounds could be in line for a refund, as well as interest.  
The Financial Ombudsman has already backed several victims. HFC – Household Finance Corportation – closed in 2010 leaving HSBC responsible for claims.  And there could be thousands more people who unwittingly forked out unfair charges to HFC which also dealt with many high street store cards including John Lewis, Currys and Dixons.  As well as outlawing the fees, the watchdog has said the customers affected before it made its ruling could also be due refunds because the charges fell outside normal practice.  
The Sunday Mirror has seen evidence where the ombudsman used the 2010 Office of Fair Trading ruling declaring the charges disproportionate.  In a letter to one victim awarded a refund the ombudsman said ‘The OFT requirements highlight that HFC actions were not in line rwith relevant guidelines’  HSBC is already facing a probe over claims its Swiss private bank helped clients evade tax. Boss Stuart Gulliver apologised to MP’s last week admitting ”unacceptable practices had damaged trust.  
TV consumer expert Liz Barclay said, ‘it is just another case of a bank taking money when they shouldn’t’. ‘If you think you’ve lost money you’ll need to get your documentation in order then you can claim through the bank’ ‘If the bank refuses you can go to the ombudsman or take the bank to court. The ombudmsna doesn’t pay compensation, it will just award a refund. If you go to court you might get more money, though it costs a lot more to do that.’  HSBC became embrolied in the scandal in 2003 after buying HFC – a bank known for dealing with sub-prime loans in the US.  Solicitors and agents for HFC issued COLLECTION CHARGES as soon as anyone defaulted.  In 2010 the OFT rule ‘When referring a customers debt to an external third party for collection HFC will not levy a fee or charge to recover costs’  One man was hit with the fees after he and his wide were made redundant, and she was diagnosed with Alzheimers. He said ‘I am Bitter, I had no idea they were adding charges. Even when the ombudsman forced them to pay it back there was no apology’ He won £1400 in 2012, six years after being charged.  Chemist John Lewis, from Tamworth, Staffs got back £1,844 plus interest. He said ‘ I missed a payment and they got fairly aggressive about it. At no time was I told I was being hit with extra charges”  Anyone affected should first contact the bank.  If needed you can then call the Financial Ombudsman 0300 123 9123 or 0800 023 4567.

HSBC Gulliver cheats the government
called to answer MPs' questions on Wednesday Banking group’s chief executive to appear before Treasury select committee after it emerges he had an account in Switzerland routed through Panama. Gulliver, brought in as a reforming chief executive of Britain’s biggest bank, had a bank account in Switzerland that was routed through Panama prompted the Treasury select committee to call him in to give evidence.

HSBC helped conceal $100 billion in Swiss accounts
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/08/news/hsbc-swiss-bank-accounts/?iid=EL
Global banking giant HSBC for years catered to a motley crew of weapons dealers, tax evaders, tin-pot dictators and celebrities, using its private Swiss arm to shield accounts worth more than $100 billion. Documents obtained and analyzed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reveal how HSBC (HSBC) used the secretive Swiss banking system to conceal the identities of accounts holders, and in many cases, help depositors avoid paying taxes.

Balls was in government at key moments related to the leaked HSBC files.
New financial and civil penalties for bankers and accountants who aid and abet tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance are expected to be included in the budget next month in the wake of the HSBC tax avoidance scandal.  Information about the planned fines emerged as George Osborne made his first detailed parliamentary response to the HSBC affair, during heated Commons exchanges with Ed Balls, who accused the chancellor of negligence and of sweeping issues about HSBC under the carpet.  In response, Osborne moved to show he was acting on the “extremely serious” allegations about HSBC Suisse by indicating that the budget was likely to include the new measures. “The problem with financial penalties is that banks can afford to pay them. They seem to be happy to pay financial penalties and then just carry on misbehaving.”  Osborne also told the Commons that Britain is close to reaching an agreement with the French authorities to widen the use of the leaked HSBC files beyond HMRC.   The deal will mean that law enforcement agencies, including the Serious Fraud Office, will be able to investigate whether HSBC committed any offences under UK law at its Swiss subsidiary.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/23/hsbc-scandal-george-osborne-tax-measures

HSBC boss says bank 'shamed' by Swiss tax avoidance
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/23/hsbc-chief-paid-7m-pounds-last-year-profits-slide-tax-avoidance-apology

New Countries Seek HSBC Data and Undeclared Cash
http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/new-countries-seek-hsbc-data-and-undeclared-cash

Swiss Defend Seven-Year Delay to HSBC Money-Launder Probe
http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/new-countries-seek-hsbc-data-and-undeclared

HSBC Is Too Big to Regulate
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-23/hsbc-is-too-big-to-regulate

HMRC hearing 
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-31532862

I debate #Swissleaks with Herve Falciani on France 24
http://www.france24.com/en/201502-the-debate-swissleaks-and-the-banks-part-one/
HSBC's CEO goes into a House of Commons hearing with the law on his side when it comes to the Swiss account he opened for bonus payments. It's hard times for the world's second-largest bank, with the Swissleaks exposing tax evaders and a 17% drop in profits - all countered by claims the UK lender's cleaned up its act since 2008's financial crisis. So are banks no longer rogue? And what does it all say about Britain, which has been much slower to prosecute tax dodgers than France or Belgium?

Serious questions for FCA Posted on February 24, 2015 by Nicholas Wilson
It has been pointed out to me, and I’m grateful to Paul Cotterill (@Bickerrecord on twitter) for drawing my attention to it, that during the period that I was in dispute with the Financial Conduct Authority because of their woeful inaction on my reports of massive fraud by HSBC and their subsequent collusion with the bank to cover it up, the bank published, in August 2014 this interim report. which appeared on the London Stock Exchange. Contained in the report under “Provisions” is this statement:
http://nicholaswilson.com/serious-question-for-fca/

Bank Accounts

Banks and money laundering
HSBC to pay $1.92 billion in money-laundering settlement - Dec. 10, 2012

Banks To Big To Fail
The Chutzba HSBC chairman warns against banking reforms

Opium to Brahmins to Yale to CIA
HSBC to Launder the Profits like they always did Tracing it back to the start
CHINA - OPIUM - HSBC - ENGLAND - BOSTON BRAHMIN- YALE - CIA

Banks Sell Drugs
The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC has always been associated with drugs. Jardine Matheson Archive.
From the Beginning Opium Drug Smuggling Pirates Jardine & Mathison followed by Sturgis Russell Started their Banks in Shanghai

Banks Cheat
In March 2013, the Commission opened proceedings regarding Credit Agricole, HSBC and JPMorgan, and the investigation as whether they were part of a Euribor rate-rigging cartel is continuing.​ HSBC said. Precious metal benchmarks have come under increased regulatory scrutiny since a scandal broke in 2012 over manipulation of Libor interest rates. HSBC was one of several banks named in lawsuits filed in U.S. courts last year alleging a conspiracy to manipulate gold, silver, platinum and palladium prices, as well as precious metals derivatives, during the daily precious metals fixes.

The Bankster Families Who Control Opium Smuggling
HSBC: The World’s Dirtiest Bank​ (excerpted from Chapter 2: Hong Kong Shanghaied: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)​ According to Global Finance, the UK-headquartered HSBC Holdings is the world’s 3rd largest bank with $2.36 trillion in assets. [2] Formerly known as Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation, HSBC has served as the world’s #1 drug money laundry since its inception as a repository for British Crown opium proceeds accrued during the Chinese Opium Wars. During the Vietnam War HSBC laundered CIA heroin proceeds.

Offshore Banking
HSBC too big to fail, too well connected to prosecute Off Shore ... like the asbestos problem" The HSBC ruling families have intertwining interests with other international ... we are exposing is a world most people never get to see." HSBC, which is headquartered in London and has offices in 74 nations.

Crypto Currency
HSBC keeps going no matter how many trillions laundered

2011-2013 Banks Too Big To Fail
The Banksters who Crashed the World: a mere 5 banks (and really 4) account for 95.9% of all derivative exposure (HSBC replaced Wells as the Top 5th bank, which at $3.9 trillion in derivative exposure is a distant place from #4 Goldman with $47.7 trillion)

Currency Markets Are Rigged
HSBC was one of several banks named in lawsuits filed in U.S. courts last year alleging a conspiracy to manipulate gold, silver, platinum and palladium prices, as well as precious metals derivatives, during the daily precious metals fixes. The century-old gold fix is a standard price for the metal that banks set twice a day over the phone.HSBC boss Stuart