Numbers don’t correspond to files handed back to Geneva bank
Nice, France (GenevaLunch) – The public prosecutor in Nice, Eric de Montgolfier, told a group of reporters Wednesday 14 April that 80,000 account holders have been identified, 8,000 of them French, from the files stolen from HSBC bank’s Geneva offices in 2007. The former HSBC employee who stole them, Herve Falciani, has been given a new identity by the French and he appears to have helped the government decrypt the files.
The figures don’t, however, correspond to those the bank says it found when Swiss authorities gave it a copy of most of the data in March.
HSBC in Geneva said 11 March 2010 that while the number of accounts was greater than the original 10 mentioned in 2009 by the bank, the total number was 24,000, well below the figure provided this week by the French prosecutor. Of those, 9,000 had left the bank, since the stolen data covered accounts that dated back to 2006.
Herve Falciano recounted a saga of life in a thriller to Nice Matin newspaper but there is little evidence to back the story
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Europe’s largest bank made a startling confession, accompanied by an apology, to its clients 11 March: Britain’s HSBC said it had been given evidence by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor that a Geneva office employee stole data linked to 24,000 client accounts and tried to sell the information abroad. The employee, Hervé Falciani, had tried to flog that data to Lebanon in 2008. His failed attempt was the start of the unraveling of his theft scheme. Evidence of efforts by Falciani and a female companion for the first time linked his name to the theft, which the Swiss government had been investigating for several weeks.
Human factor is the real risk for an international company with secrets
It also drew attention to a significant problem for international companies that have any private data, from client information to research and development data: It takes a human being to steal for personal gain, so knowing staff well is as critical to security as a good IT system. Laws inside a country may protect corporate secrets and privacy, but once international boundaries are crossed the issue of countries not extraditing their own citizens can become an issue.
Thief, spy saga victim or honest whistleblower: Falciani’s many faces
Falciani’s theft covered several months but it is not yet clear how he did it
[correction 13 March] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The extraordinary under-assessment by HSBC of the number of bank accounts implicated in the theft of data from Geneva begins to make more sense when the timeline the bank provided to the press Thursday 11 March is studied. French authorities and then Swiss have been privy to the data for months, but the bank says its first credible clue about the scope of the theft came only one week ago, 3 March.
Hervé Falciani stole data linked to accounts of some 24,000 clients in Geneva, some 15,000 of whom are still clients, but the bank initially said only 10 accounts were involved. How he did it is still unclear and is under investigation by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office. Falciani is in hiding in France: France, like many countries including Switzerland, does not extradite its own citizens, which puts him out of the reach of Swiss investigators.
Timeline provided by HSBC
German local government confirms new stolen data offered, Swiss president confirms Germany bought first batch
Swiss politician might consider reconsidering Swiss banking secrecy, some hint
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The saga of data stolen from Swiss banks and offered to the German government continues, with new wrinkles to the story. A German newspaper will publish an article Saturday, reports Swiss television TSR, stating that a new batch of stolen data, with 2,000 client names, is being offered to a regional German government. The government of Bade-Wurtemberg has confirmed the information.
Meanwhile, Swiss President Doris Leuthard told reporters as she came out of a meeting that Switzerland will likely ask for a copy of the first batch of stolen data. Switzerland did the same with data stolen from a Geneva branch of British bank HSBC and sold to the French government. The data will allow Switzerland to see if requests for judicial assistance from France, and perhaps now from Germany, are based on information obtained from the stolen files. If this is the case, Switzerland will refuse to provide assistance because of the illegal source of the information.
Switzerland and Germany have confirmed this week that they are slowly, steadily continuing to negotiate a new bilateral double taxation agreement.
One of the results of this, according to Le Temps newspaper, is that the question of the viability of Swiss banking secrecy is no longer a taboo political issue.
Thieves to be prosecuted once identity known
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -The latest twist in the increasingly tangled tale of client data stolen from HSBC in Geneva comes from the thief himself, formerly known as Hervé Falciani. The former HSBC computer system employee who now lives under a new identity in the south of France told French journalists from Nice Matin that in August 2008 he was kidnapped by two men in a van in Geneva’s Champel district. The men were of unclear Middle Eastern origin, perhaps Israeli, says Falciani, who accuses his Lebanese girlfriend at the time of being part of a plot to discredit him.
The Lebanese link has surfaced following accusations by Switzerland that Falciani was trying to sell the names and other information about bank clients, which he acknowledges he stole, to several governments, notably Lebanon.
HSBC victim of data theft
Update 21:15 (last paragraph) Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The French authorities have responded favourably to Switzerland’s demand to return the data stolen by a former employee of HSBC Private Bank in Geneva, reportedly amounting to 130,000 client names. French Ministry of Justice officials confirmed that the stolen laptop was to be returned “very quickly”.
The encrypted client data, taken from the bank by former IT employee Hervé Falciani, was turned over to the French public prosecutor’s office in Nice, where investigations were opened into French clients of the bank suspected of money-laundering. Switzerland had asked the French authorities for judicial assistance earlier this year when Falciani was found to have stolen the data and moved to France. As part of the cross-border cooperation, Swiss authorities supplied the French with the means to decipher the data on the laptop.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The French public prosecutor in Nice, southern France, Eric de Montgolfier, has revealed that his office is in possession of confidential details of up to 130,000 clients from HSBC’s private banking branch in Geneva. The data was acquired by the French state when Hervé Falciani, a former IT employee of the bank, left HSBC with the details stored on his laptop. Journal de Dimanche reports that 3,000 of the bank’s clients are French citizens.
The whistleblower, who is reported to have received a new identity and is said to be in hiding in fear of his life, told French public television that he acted out of idealism: “Either you bury your head in the sand or you try to do something about it.”
