Swiss Leaks

The data for this period comes from files removed from HSBC Private Bank by a former staffer, software engineer Hervé Falciani,[1] who fled to Lebanon with the attempt to sell it.

[6] According to the International Consortium of Investigation Journalists (ICIJ), which treated the data of the Swiss Leaks, Morocco is concerned by $1.6 billion[clarification needed] of tax evasion and stands at thirty-seventh place of the affected countries.

Prince Moulay Rachid was touched by this scandal, the princess Lalla Meryem and the current king Mohammed VI with an amount $9.1 million hidden in the HSBC bank.

[8][9] Given the scale of the investigation, Le Monde called upon 154 journalists[1] affiliated with 47 different media outlets including: The Guardian, CBS, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and The Indian Express, among others, to help analyze the data.

The Swiss Leaks Project's[11] investigations revealed that HSBC's Geneva branch, ignoring these rules, helped people accused of drug-running, corruption, money-laundering or arms-dealing conceal billions of dollars in Switzerland.

[14] In March 2015, the French financial state prosecutor requested that HSBC's Swiss private bank was sent to criminal trial over the suspected tax-dodging scheme for wealthy customers.

The deal struck between the financial crime prosecutor's office and the bank was a first in France under a new procedure that allowed companies under suspicion of corruption or dissimulation of tax fraud to negotiate a fine to stop a case from going to trial.