Britain's biggest bank has been dragged into yet another scandal after
it was accused of opening accounts in Jersey for criminals including
drug dealers and gun runners - helping customers launder money and evade
tax in Britain.
HSBC is being investigated by HM Revenue and
Customs after a whistle-blower handed it the names,
addresses and
balances of every person the banking giant has helped place money on the
Channel Island.
On that list is believed to be drug dealer
Daniel Bayes who is now in Venezuela after he abandoned his £500,000
cannabis farm in Sussex; Michael Lee, who was found to have 300 guns in
his Devon home, three bankers on fraud charges and a man named Britain's
'number two computer crook'.
A total of £699m is being held in
these 4,388 accounts in Jersey with one investor holding £6million and
the average balance is £337,000.
People from all over Britain
have invested via HSBC in this way, including taxi drivers and
greengrocers as well as celebrities, while some others on the list are
either wanted by police or have serious criminal convictions.
British
residents and citizens can squeeze the amount of tax they pay but have
to tell HMRC about the cash they hold offshore meanwhile banks must vet
who is banking with them and where their money is from.
It comes
just months after HSBC was humiliated because it allowed rogue states
and drugs cartels to launder billions of pounds through its branches.
It
was accused by the U.S. government of fostering such a 'polluted'
culture it became a conduit for criminal enterprises and faces
$1.5billion in fines.
Now British officials are trawling through
the latest list of names handed to them as hundreds have probably been
evading tax, a Daily Telegraph investigation found.
'We can
confirm we have received the data and we are studying it. We receive
information from a very wide range of sources which we use to ensure the
tax rules are being respected,' an HMRC spokesman said.
'Clamping
down on those who try to cheat the system through evading taxes and
over claiming benefits is a top priority for us and we value the
information we receive from the public and business community.'
Tax
authorities around the world are stepping up their efforts to uncover
the identities of those who avoid taxes by hiding their wealth in
offshore accounts.
HSBC is easily Britain's biggest bank and the world's second biggest, but has declined to comment on the damning Jersey list.
'HSBC
has a duty of confidentiality and cannot comment on clients even to
confirm or deny they are clients. We have good relationships with our
regulators and co-operate with investigations when required to do so,' a
spokesman said.
Last week a Greek magazine published the names of more than 2,000 of HSBC's Swiss account holders.
The
Greek names came from the so-called Lagarde List, named after IMF head
Christian Lagarde, who first distributed the list to Greece and other EU
states in 2010 when she was French finance minister.
In July a top executive at the bank sensationally quit in front of a US Senate hearing that exposed the scale of the scandal.
HSBC had been one of the few UK banks to survive the financial crisis with its reputation intact.
But
a devastating 335-page Senate report accused HSBC of ignoring warnings
and breaching safeguards that should have stopped the laundering of
money from Mexico, Iran and Syria.
The bank failed to monitor a
staggering £38trillion of money moving across borders from places that
could have posed a risk, including the Cayman Islands and Switzerland.
The failures stretched to dealings with Saudi Arabian bank Al Rajhi,
which was linked to the financing of terrorism following 9/11.
HSBC's
American arm, HBUS, initially severed all ties with Al Rajhi. But it
later agreed to supply the Saudi bank with US banknotes after it
threatened to pull all of its business with HSBC worldwide.
According
to the report, HBUS also accepted £9.6billion in cash over two years
from subsidiaries without checking where the money came from.
In
one instance, Mexican and US authorities warned HSBC that £4.5billion
sent to the US from its Mexican subsidiary 'could reach that volume only
if they included illegal drug proceeds'.
Concerns over the
bank's links to Mexican drug dealers included £1.3billion stashed in
accounts in the Cayman Islands. One HSBC compliance officer admitted the
accounts were misused by 'organised crime'.
London-based banker
David Bagley, head of HSBC's compliance division, which is meant to
prevent breaches of the law, quit in front of the Senate committee. He
had been with the bank for 20 years.
The affair was also an
embarrassment for David Cameron, because his trade envoy Stephen Green
chaired HSBC during the period covered by the allegations.
Source: DAILY MAIL UK