Tory funding scandal explodes in the UK: The ethnic angle
It is not very surprising that rich people use secret Swiss bank accounts to hide their fortunes from the taxman. Nevertheless the political implications of the biggest bank leak in history at HSBC ensure that it will ricochet around the world for some time to come.
The accounts of over 100,000 wealthy clients have been opened to scrutiny by a whistle blower and show that the Swiss branch of Britain’s biggest bank was dealing not only in industrial-scale tax evasion but, apparently, money laundering as well. While holding a Swiss bank account is not illegal, hiding income from the taxman is, and traditionally that is the only reason someone would have a Swiss account — unless they worked in that country.
All kinds of wealthy flotsam have bobbed up — Middle Eastern royalty, hedge fund owners, politicians, industrialists, Belgian blood diamond smugglers, Israeli arms dealers, African dictators, fashion designers, international models, entertainers and many more. Fresh revelations are revealed practically every day.
The fallout has been biggest in Britain where the ruling Conservative elite has ended up with egg on its face after seven of its largest donors were exposed as beneficiaries of HSBC’s Swiss tax arrangements. The Tories received £5 million from those HSBC Suisse account holders. Read more





