Hundreds of South Africans have stashed more than $2-billion (about R23-billion) in accounts at Swiss banking group HSBC, details of which have now emerged in a leak that shines a new spotlight on the secretive world of Swiss banking.<\/p>\n
The information was dug out by a network of journalists in 45 countries operating under the banner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. They used records first obtained by French newspaper Le Monde.<\/p>\n
Another version of the records was obtained by the French government in 2010, which led to numerous prosecutions, but this is the first global release of the data.<\/p>\n
It is not illegal to have a Swiss account, and not all South Africans who have them use them with duplicitous intent.<\/p>\n
However, the list has also exposed the secret bank accounts in which crooks, tax dodgers, arms dealers, shady diamond dealers, politicians and celebrities stash their cash.<\/p>\n
In all, $102-billion was stashed in Swiss accounts on behalf of more than 100000 people and entities from 203 countries.<\/p>\n
There were 585 South Africans on the list, who held $2.09-billion in 2221 accounts.<\/p>\n
The documents confirm that Fana Hlongwane – accused of being the bagman for bribes paid in South Africa’s arms deal – held a number of accounts with HSBC.<\/p>\n
Hlongwane is listed as the beneficial owner of an account, Leynier Finance SA, that contained $888000. Two other accounts, which held $12-million at one point in 2006-2007, do not specify his role.<\/p>\n
Hlongwane did not reply to requests for comment. Efforts to reach his lawyers failed.<\/p>\n
Documents obtained by the Sunday Times in 2010 confirmed that Hlongwane, dubbed a playboy with a millionaire’s lifestyle, was indirectly paid millions by British defence company BAE.<\/p>\n
Hlongwane was the special adviser to the late defence minister Joe Modise.<\/p>\n
In December, Hlongwane told the arms deal inquiry that money did not change hands in the deal.<\/p>\n
“Contrary to popular belief, I was never appointed or requested by the minister [Modise] to participate in the [strategic defence procurement package] in any manner, shape or form,” he said.<\/p>\n
A number of other prominent South Africans, including directors of large JSE-listed companies, are also named as account holders.<\/p>\n
But a US investigation in 2012 also showed that a number of shady individuals – including Latin-American drug cartels, and terrorists – used Swiss banks to launder millions.<\/p>\n
Source: Timeslive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of South Africans have stashed more than $2-billion (about R23-billion) in accounts at Swiss banking group HSBC, details of which have now emerged in a leak that shines a new spotlight on the secretive world of Swiss banking. The information was dug out by a network of journalists in 45 countries operating under the … Continue reading “SA stashes billions in Swiss banks”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[749,10970,3118,7778],"class_list":["post-17686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-arms-deal","tag-bae","tag-billions","tag-swiss-banks"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17687,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17686\/revisions\/17687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}