Whistleblowers Reveal Banks’ “Criminal Industry” Targeted BRICS Nations and Allies

Stephanie Gibaud, a former public relations executive at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), who became a whistleblower to expose how UBS sought out wealthy clients to illegally help them evade taxes, reports that the BRICS nations and their allies are special targets of the bank criminals.

Gibaud and HSBC whistleblower Herve Falciani have both been collaborating with Indian authorities to uncover the extent of both banks’ illicit activities, which have siphoned off millions in tax revenue from that country. Gibaud and Falciani are also providing Argentina’s AFIP tax agency with intelligence for the same purpose. Gibaud, who has met with AFIP director Ricardo Echegaray twice, will be traveling to Buenos Aires in March to meet with him again.

In a Dec. 6, 2014, interview with NDTV, Gibaud reported that the big banks that offer illicit offshore services to wealthy clients are looking to expand business in India, and that for UBS, “the marketing hub is now in Mumbai.” Senior bank managers are discussing expanding their operations to the BRICS countries, she said.
“It comes from top management, and they do business PowerPoint presentations that clearly explain where the wealth is going and which markets they can penetrate.”

She warned that UBS’s new branch in Nigeria will most likely be seeking wealthy Nigerian clients for illicit purposes.

After the 2008 financial crash, Gibaud explained, banks shifted their emphasis to BRICS nations and other emerging markets. She offered to explain UBS’s strategies and modus operandi to Indian investigators, describing how it approaches clients, and how

“the bank penetrates all its networks everywhere on the planet and the focus is per country, per city, per network.”

In a more recent Feb. 12 interview published with DNAIndia, Gibaud stated that

“Swiss banks have the same core business. What’s true with HSBC is true with UBS and all their peers. Are any banks under investigation in India? Has India asked other private banks, such as Credit-Suisse, UBS, Julius Baer, etc.,”

she asked.

In a Nov. 28, 2014, interview with NDTV, Falciani reported that the list of Indians holding unregistered accounts in HSBC for tax evasion purposes “is just the tip of the iceberg,” explaining that India was only given 2MB of the 200GB of data on clients. He said he was willing to travel to India with a team to provide information to Indian investigators.