Paris: Whistleblower Herve Falciani, who leaked information related to thousands of illicit bank account holders at HSBC in Geneva, was indicted by Swiss authorities on Thursday for industrial espionage and breach of trade and banking secrecy.
Speaking to a news channel, Herve said that his indictment was part of an agenda. He also claimed that he had no choice but to violate Swiss banking secrecy laws.
“While you have many countries fighting and suing banks, you have one country Switzerland suing individuals like me who are trying to fight impunity” he said.
Despite an arrest warrant issued against Herve Falciani in 2009, countries like France, Belgium and Argentina are seeking help from him.
Falciani, a former employee of global banking group HSBC has been accused of stealing information between 2006 and 2007 relating to 24,000 customers of the Swiss division of HSBC.
The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland says the data theft charges against the French-Italian national involve stolen bank information transmitted to Lebanese banks, the Paris-based National Directorate of Tax Investigations and other foreign authorities.
Account details were sent to former French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund, who passed them on to U.S. and European Union authorities.
