The residents of nearly 20 wealthy Belgian citizens holding offshore accounts at HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm were raided as part of a probe into the UK bank’s alleged role in enabling the wealthy clients in Belgium to hide their money from local tax authorities.
The raids in Brussels and Antwerp are aimed at gathering information to strengthen a case against HSBC, a spokesperson of the Brussels prosecutor’s office said.
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The spokesman claimed that the probe had started following the hand over of a CD-ROM disc, which consists of details of the bank’s accounts in Switzerland held by Belgian residents to their Belgian counterparts by the French tax officials.
The three-year probe has tasked 90 federal agents to find out which part of HSBC Private Bank’s Swiss arm in Geneva has played in the administration of its Belgian client base.
According to Brussels prosecutors in 2010, HSBC has allegedly combined complex banking structures to protect Belgian clients from tax authorities in Belgium.
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