Criminal HSBC bank and the British government

This video says about itself:

HSBC Worked With Dictators, Child Soldiers & Al-Qaeda

9 February 2015

Secret documents reveal that global banking giant HSBC profited from doing business with arms dealers who channeled mortar bombs to child soldiers in Africa, bag men for Third World dictators, traffickers in blood diamonds and other international outlaws.

By Richard Bagley in Britain:

Leaked HSBC dossier reveal the stink of a Tory tax cover-up

Tuesday 10th February 2015

Government only probes a handful of super-rich tax-dodgers exposed in Swiss HSBC leak

Ministers were landed in boiling water yesterday over their role in an apparent cover-up protecting wealthy Tory backers caught up in illegal tax-dodging scams run by a shadowy Swiss wing of HSBC bank.

Leaked documents stripped away the shroud of secrecy that has protected over 130,000 super-wealthy individuals worldwide and hushed up the bank’s role advising them how to hide their billions from tighter tax rules.

HM Revenue and Customs’ hands-off approach towards wealthy tax-dodgers was savaged as it emerged that only a few hundred out of an initial list of 6,800 suspicious British names in a French dossier had been confronted.

Out-of-court deals for dodged back payments totalled £135 million, but so far there has only been one prosecution.

Questions also mounted over PM David Cameron’s 2010 appointment of trade minister Lord Green — then a chief at the bank — months after secret details of the scandal reached the corridors of power.

The peer remained in hiding yesterday as the scandal surrounding a Panorama film aired last night grew.

Public accounts committee chair Margaret Hodge said: “Either he didn’t know and he was asleep at the wheel, or he did know and he was therefore involved in dodgy tax practices.”

MPs rounded on the Tories during an urgent Commons session.

Treasury Minister David Gauke claimed that Paris had not intended that the information be shared beyond HMRC, ruling out its use in criminal prosecutions.

Only around 1,000 out of an eventual 3,600 individuals had been challenged, he confirmed casually, while the tax authorities “continue to monitor” the dealings of the rest.

But Labour shadow Shabana Mahmood said the government’s explanations “simply don’t go far enough.

“We need much more detail as to what the government have been up to since they were made aware of this information and why they failed to act,” she said.

Labour MP Frank Dobson urged that the tax dodgers’ identities now be revealed by the government.

“The public really can’t understand why the names of these self-confessed tax swindlers are remaining secret,” he said.

The government should publish the list “to enable the public to see that list” and allow for cross-referencing with a list of Tory donors.

Labour MP John Mann, a member of the Treasury select committee, confirmed that he had written to committee chair Andrew Tyrie to demand a confrontation with HMRC bosses.

“HSBC have been found to have helped its wealthiest clients avoid paying tax in the UK and it appears that HMRC not only knew about this but chose to do nothing about it,” fumed Mr Mann.

Tax expert Richard Murphy warned that the HSBC dealings, which only came to light in 2007 when an employee blew the whistle, were likely just the tip of the iceberg.

He described it as “exceptionally unlikely that such abuse was restricted to that bank” and it suggested “widespread criminality was at play.”

HSBC leaks: David Cameron faces grilling over party links with scandal-hit bank: here.

On Sunday, international news outlets the Guardian and Le Monde, working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), published articles based on their analysis of leaked files showing that the Swiss private banking arm of HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, functioned for years as a tax evasion and money laundering firm: here.

HSBC files: international outcry over activities at bank’s Swiss arm. Revelations of collusion with wealthy and criminal clients in tax malpractice triggers furious response around the world: here.

HSBC files: Swiss bank aggressively pushed way for clients to avoid new tax. Far from acting as passive party to clients’ tax schemes, HSBC Suisse marketed device to effectively sabotage European savings directive: here.

HSBC a repeat offender that will never change: here.

LABOUR demanded answers from Chancellor George Osborne yesterday after the revelation that hundreds of super-rich HSBC customers had struck out-of-court settlements rather than face prosecution for tax avoidance: here.

Labour veteran Dennis Skinner tore into the tax cover-up Tories yesterday for waging war on benefits claimants but stripping funds from departments aimed at hunting down fraud by the rich: here.

The Tories were accused of trying to “buy David Cameron the keys to Downing Street” at a clandestine supper club for the super-rich yesterday. The guest list for their exclusive “Black and White Ball” at London’s five-star Grosvenor House hotel in London will be kept secret: here.

Last year the wealth of Britain’s 1,000 richest people rose by 15 per cent to a total of £519 billion. That’s equivalent to half of Britain’s entire national debt and almost 20 times Britain’s current account deficit — the £27bn that the government says must be saved by cuts in public services: here.

TOMAS BYRNE had a high-powered job in investment banking but gave it all up to write a thriller exposing globalised wealth plundering. He tells Paul Simon why: here.