Tom Burroughes, Group Editor, Family Wealth Report

Herve Falciani, the former HSBC employee who is wanted by Swiss authorities on suspicion of stealing confidential banking information now being used by international financial investigators, claims US officials warned him he was in danger and advised him to go to Spain, media reports said.

The man was arrested last July after he left France by sea and tried to enter Spain through the northeastern port of Barcelona. In December, Spain’s National Court released him after authorities said Falciani was cooperating with investigators from several European countries in probes into tax evasion, money-laundering and terrorism financing.

He is now fighting extradition to Switzerland, where he is accused of stealing information between 2006 and 2007 related to at least 24,000 customers with private accounts with the Swiss division of HSBC, a report by Associated Press said.

The story highlights how the Swiss banking industry, once renowned for its secrecy laws, has come under pressure from governments trying to find any way to hunt down tax evaders using the Alpine state as a place to hold undeclared money. However, in its defence, Switzerland is still fighting to prevent former bank employees from divulging client affairs – a serious criminal offence under Swiss law.

In an interview published in El Pais newspaper, the man said he was cooperating with US Justice Department officials when he was told to head for Spain.

“They told me that from that moment my life was at risk,” Falciani reportedly said. “They told me the only safe place in Europe was Spain.”

The paper quotes Falciani as saying that US authorities advised him on what day to travel – July 1. “They even knew which judge would be on duty when I arrived,” he said.

Falciani is also accused of breaching banking secrecy, including allegedly releasing a list of names of HSBC private customers to French officials in 2008, the year he fled Switzerland for France.

France’s former finance minister, Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund, passed the list on to the US and several European Union countries, thereby exposing many of the bank’s clients to prosecution for tax evasion.

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