[pp.int.general] Hervé Falciani likely to be extradited to Switzerland

[Zbigniew Łukasiak]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 10:32 AM, Daniel Riaño <danielrr2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, this thread is becoming more and more interesting (but lets keep
> mother Theresa, the nazis and the Jews out of this thread, interesting
> as they all are in their own right; sorry if I inadvertently
> introduced the former as a focus on this absolutely unconnected
> thread)
>
> We have this guy, Hervé Falciani, a computer specialist who used to
> work for the HSBC (one of the largest banks in the world), and
> specifically at its branch in Geneva, from 2001 to 2008. From 2007 to
> 2007 he subtracted data about c. 24,000 bank customers and business
> (spread along c. 1300.000 computer files). Most of them were large (or
> very large) fortunes who had subtracted large or very large amounts of
> money to they respective fisco bureaus; some of them as part of the
> money washing procedure
> (http://www.vanguardia.com.mx/hsbclavoensinaloa100millonesdedolares-1337523.html),
> others just to keep all of their money, without the need to share it
> with their fellow citizens via taxes, etc.
>
> Apparently he tried first to sell all this information to various
> banks, secret service agencies, etc, while he was still working for
> the HSBC, without success. For years he tried and tried, until his
> activities at the bank were discovered, and he flew to France (he has
> French and Italian nationality). The Swiss police asked the French for
> his detention, but the later declined, and they took hold of the
> servers instead & with the help of Falciani shared the relevant data
> with the police and economic bureaus from other countries who
> expressed the wish to have this information. All this data allowed the
> authorities in Spain, France, Italy and other countries to recover
> several hundred millions in unpaid taxes (certain cases were
> notorious, as the 200 millions evaded by relatives of Emilio Botin,
> the president of Banco Santander)
>
> He was arrested in Spain July 1, and he is awaiting extradition to
> Switzerland, where he faces an accusation that coul end in a 7 year
> imprisonment sentence.

I think the question here is if we are against the secrecy of bank
accounts - and I think that as a univesal rule this is unacceptable.
Then we need to think what are the reasonable principles that can take
precendence over that rule.  We have here the  relatives of Emilio
Botin - and everyone feels good that they were cought - because he is
quite an evil figure - but what if this was just an oridinary guy?

Another aspect of this is the vigilant justice way of doing things -
and this brings in the question that I've always wanted to ask - what
is/are the opinion(s) in the pirate movement on the Anonymous.

Cheers,
Zbigniew

-- 
Zbigniew Lukasiak
http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/