Britain’s
biggest bank is at the centre of a major HM Revenue and Customs investigation
after it opened offshore accounts in Jersey for serious criminals living in
this country, The Telegraph can disclose.
The Telegraph, Holly Watt, Robert Winnett and Claire Newell, 15 Nov 2012
 |
| Photo: ALAMY |
The tax
authorities have obtained details of every British client of HSBC in Jersey
after a whistleblower secretly provided a detailed list of names, addresses and
account balances earlier this week.
The
Telegraph understands that among those identified on the list are Daniel Bayes,
a drug dealer who is now in Venezuela; Michael Lee, who was convicted of
possessing more than 300 weapons at his house in Devon; three bankers facing
major fraud allegations and a man once dubbed London’s “number two computer
crook”. A series of other accounts containing six-figure deposits are also
registered to modest addresses in relatively poor parts of the country.
The
disclosures raise serious questions about HSBC’s procedures in Jersey, with the
bank already preparing to pay fines of around $1.5 billion in America for
breaking money laundering rules.
The bank is
legally obliged to report to the authorities any suspicions about the source of
money deposited in its accounts.
HM Revenue
and Customs is now understood to be trawling through a list of the names and
addresses of more than 4,000 people based in Britain who had bank accounts at
HSBC in Jersey.
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This work
is expected to lead to the identification of hundreds of people who are evading
tax as the accounts have not been previously disclosed.
Last night,
a spokesman for HMRC said: “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.
“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.”
The
Telegraph has established from public records that HSBC has opened bank
accounts in Jersey for several people who are wanted by the police or have
serious criminal convictions.
The
information obtained by HMRC is thought to be the biggest data leak identifying
holders of offshore accounts ever obtained by the British tax authorities.
The list
identifies 4,388 people holding £699 million in offshore current accounts and
they are also likely to have billions of pounds more in investment schemes.
Several celebrities and other well-known figures are understood to be
identified in the client data.
Tax
authorities around the world are involved in an increasingly aggressive race to
obtain details of their citizens with offshore bank accounts, many of which are
suspected to be linked to tax evasion or other criminal activity. An insider at
HSBC in Switzerland has already sold details of the bank’s clients in Geneva to
tax authorities in 2008. This led to the creation of the so-called “Lagarde
list”, named after the then French finance minister, with about 2,000 Britons
identified. Last week, a Greek journalist was threatened with prosecution after
disclosing details of Greek account holders on the Lagarde list.
The leak of
the Jersey data, which is understood not to have involved HMRC paying for the
list, is expected to have global ramifications as more than 4,000 residents of
other countries are identified, although British residents account for more
than half of all the clients.
The HSBC
Jersey client list is understood to be heavily dominated by senior figures in
the City. Dozens of bankers are understood to have deposited six-figure sums
offshore with some institutions said to have “clusters” of employees taking
advantage of the accounts.
Doctors,
mining and oil executives and oil workers are also heavily represented in the
list. More unexpectedly, a greengrocer in the East End is understood to have
more than £80,000 in his HSBC current account in Jersey.
Although
some of the individuals may have declared the offshore holdings, HMRC is
currently understood to be comparing the new documents with tax records to
identify anomalies.
One
investment manager has more than £6 million in his account, while the average
amount held is £337,000. Under Britain’s non-domicile rules, those with foreign
roots only have to pay tax on money entering Britain – provided it is earned
abroad. However, more seriously for HSBC, dozens of people with no obvious
legal source of substantial income are holding large sums in Jersey.
Daniel
Bayes was branded “monstrous” for refusing to return from Venezuela after
£500,000 of cannabis was found growing at his farm in 2006.
His father
was jailed for three years in his absence. Mr Bayes is understood to have
deposited £250,000 in an offshore account, although police said they would
still like to question him.
A couple
who live in a small house in Teignmouth, Devon, deposited £85,000 in an
offshore account. More than 300 firearms, including Israeli Uzi submachine guns
and pump-action shotguns, were found in their house after a police raid in
2001. Michael Lee was jailed for two years in 2002.
Around the
world, HSBC has faced repeated accusations that it was not maintaining
sufficient controls over the source of money deposited in its accounts. Money
laundering rules demand that banks monitor the source of money and report any
suspicions to the relevant authorities. Most banks take an active approach to
this duty.
In July, a
US Senate investigation found that money-laundering controls were largely
absent in HSBC’s operations in Mexico. The bank has also faced serious
criticism for hiding Iranian transactions.
One analyst
called HSBC’s practices “a wink/nod business model” that showed “a profound
lack of controls”.
Stuart
Gulliver, the chief executive of HSBC, previously admitted: “We failed to spot
and deal with unacceptable behaviour.” He insisted the bank would begin to
operate at “a single standard globally that is determined by the highest
standard we must apply anywhere”.
A spokesman
for the bank said last night: “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.”
Whistle-blowers
helping authorities chase tax evaders
TAX
authorities around the world are involved in an increasingly aggressive and
often clandestine race to gain information on the identities of those with
offshore bank accounts.
HM Revenue
and Customs (HMRC) has paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to whistle-blowers
in return for information about offshore account holders. German authorities
reportedly paid €2.5 million (£1.9 million) to an unnamed individual for a CD
containing details of HSBC clients in Switzerland in 2010.
The data
contained information that led prosecutors to believe that more than £1 billion
of undeclared income had been deposited by 1,100 wealthy Germans.
Last week,
a Greek magazine published a list of HSBC’s Swiss bank account holders. It is
known as the “Lagarde List”, because the then French finance minister Christine
Lagarde — now the International Monetary Fund director — handed it to Greek
authorities in 2010.
HMRC also
received details of British residents from this list and has investigated 500
of those identified.
HMRC is
understood not to have paid for information about HSBC’s Jersey clients but the
data it has received is thought to be the single biggest disclosure of a bank’s
offshore customers.
The Daily
Telegraph understands that the whistleblower who has obtained the information
also has further lists of offshore HSBC clients with addresses outside Britain,
including 602 in Israel, 527 in France, 333 in Spain and 117 in the US. In
total, the leaked HSBC Jersey client list is thought to contain the names and
addresses of 8,474 people. More than half are based in this country.
The use of
tax havens by British residents and citizens to minimise tax is legal but
subject to a range of complex rules and regulations. British taxpayers have a
duty to report to HMRC details of money held offshore that is liable to tax.
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