‘HSBC, a criminal bank’

This 2011 music video from Brazil is called Is It A Crime – Sade Show, HSBC Arena, Rio de Janeiro.

Little did singer Sade then suspect about the crimes of HSBC bank, after which the theater where she sang was named …

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

“HSBC is a criminal bank”

Monday, 17 Nov 2014 14:39 (Update: 17-11-14, 14:50)

The Belgian judiciary has opened the hunt for the British bank HSBC and will drag the bank to court. The Swiss branch of the bank is said to have lured for years Belgian customers, mainly from the Antwerp diamond world, in a roundabout way with their money to Switzerland.

The Belgian state is said to have lost by the Swiss connection hundreds of millions of euros in tax revenues.

The allegations of the Belgian investigating judge Michel Claise are strong stuff. Serious and organized tax fraud, money laundering, criminal organization and working illegally as a financial intermediary.

Recruitment

The HSBC practices came to light four years ago. The Antwerp prosecutor received a CD-ROM with data of Belgian HSBC account holders in Switzerland. The bank is said to have helped a thousand wealthy clients to evade taxes.

In recent years it was investigated how the bank worked and recruited customers. Through inter alia, shelf companies in Panama and the Virgin Islands billions were siphoned off into the Swiss bank branch.

Biggest

HSBC, Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, is an old British bank, founded in 1865 to finance trade with the Far East. After the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 it moved its headquarters to London. The bank employs about 300,000 people. In 2008, it was the largest bank in the world.

HSBC together with four other major banks recently was fined billions of euros for manipulating exchange rates. The bank is also accused of messing with the Euribor interest.

TAX agency AFIP head Ricardo Echegaray accused British transnational bank HSBC on Thursday of helping more than 4,000 rich Argentinians to dodge taxes through secret Swiss accounts: here.

HSBC files show how Swiss bank helped clients dodge taxes and hide millions. Data in massive cache of leaked secret bank account files lift lid on questionable practices at subsidiary of one of world’s biggest financial institutions: here.

Banking Giant HSBC Sheltered Murky Cash Linked to Dictators and Arms Dealers: here.