Swiss close probe into tax evasion, fine HSBC $43m

Swiss prosecutors on Thursday closed an investigation into allegations British banking giant HSBC’s Geneva branch helped clients evade millions of dollars in taxes, after the bank agreed to a massive fine.

“We ended the procedure following a deal with the bank, which will pay 40 million Swiss francs ($43 million, or €38 million),” Olivier Jornot, attorney general in the Swiss canton of Geneva, told reporters.

Banking giant HSBC faced damaging claims in February that its Swiss division helped wealthy customers, including several Israelis, dodge millions of dollars in taxes after a “SwissLeaks” cache of secret files emerged online.

Among their clients were over 6,200 Israelis, with holdings totaling some $10 billion.

The documents claimed the bank helped clients in more than 200 countries evade taxes on accounts containing $119 billion.

The huge cache of files, which were stolen by an IT worker in 2007 and passed to French authorities, sparked criminal probes in several countries and attempts to claw back the cash.

Israel was ranked sixth on the list of countries with the most money in the hidden Swiss accounts, with an estimated $10 billion overall.

The funds were distributed among over six thousands clients and 9,769 accounts.

One Israeli client alone had $1.5 billion in his account. The documents noted that while over six thousand people were associated with Israel, only half of them are Israeli citizens.

Brazil-born banker Edmond J. Safra was listed as holding a Swiss account with up to $5.3 million, and Israeli-Canadian oil trader Jonathan Kollek was linked to accounts holding as much as $72 million.

Diamond dealer Beny Steinmetz, celebrity rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto –– who is embroiled in an ongoing graft case — and businessman Zadik Bino were also named as account holders.