6,222 Israelis among names in SwissLeaks list

Israel is No. 6 in a list of 200 countries that are home to 100,000 people who hold around $10 billion in secret accounts.

The list, uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and published by the BBC and the Guardian, was nicknamed SwissLeaks. It details funds deposited in a Swiss branch of the UK’s HSBC bank and among the c. 100,000 names, 6,222 are Israelis. Seventeen of them held secret accounts totaling more than $100 million. Thousands of others had smaller accounts.

Apart from the list some correspondence between HSBC and the clients is revealed, and according to Army Radio it includes a series of letters exchanged between a manager at the Bank of Israel trying to get better rates for one of the clients on the list and an HSBC official.