The long list of prominent bank clients that drained black money into Switzerland with the assistance of HSBC's Swiss banking arm has caught the attention of Slovak tax authorities. The leaked list of the bank's clients from 2007 also mentions 60 people with connections to Slovakia. Six of them are directly linked and holders of Slovak passports. "We will use all legal means to obtain data from the Swiss Leaks," spokesperson for the Financial Administration Patrícia Macíková confirmed. The Financial Administration however did not reveal how it intends to gain access to the Swiss Leaks data to avoid the potential sabotage of its efforts.
A computer security specialist obtained a large cache of data from HSBC bank in 2007, passing it on to the French government to identify tax cheats. Shortly thereafter a group called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists also obtained the leaked files, shining light onto questionable banking transactions. According to the leaked data, HSBC did business with numerous international outlaws, arms dealers and drug smugglers, working hard to protect the identities of its clients, even in cases where the illegality of the funds being deposited was mentioned.
The HBSC leaked data offers a rare glimpse into the often secretive world of Swiss banking institutions, involving 106,000 clients from 203 countries, including funds in excess of €88,000,000,000.
