The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money is keen to follow the leads that Hervé Falciani, a former employee of the HSBC Geneva, who had leaked details of 628 Indian account holders to France, is willing to share with the Indian authorities.
“We received information from our office that Mr. Falciani has expressed his desire to share more details pertaining to the ongoing investigations into the unaccounted money stashed away abroad by Indian nationals. We would definitely pursue the leads,” said a government official.
Mr. Falciani, after he escaped from Switzerland in December 2008, had shared details of about 1 lakh accounts and bank transactions with the French agencies. The list included the accounts opened by hundreds of French, US, British and Indian citizens.
In an interview to NDTV, Mr. Falciani, who worked as a systems engineer with the bank, recently said that India had been provided only 1 per cent of information on the HSBC accounts and that inputs on certain secret accounts operated by some Belgian firms dealing in blood diamonds could be of interest to India.
Mr. Falciani, in the interview, said the traders had strong links with India and information he had on them could help Indian agencies bust the network. He also said certain accounts held by French nationals could be of help in the probe.
The French government had shared the data on 628 Indian account holders with India in 2011 for taxation purposes under a specific agreement prohibiting disclosure of information to any other agency.
(the hindu)