Switzerland sentences the "Edward Snowden of Tax Evasion" to 5 years in prison

Switzerland has sentenced Herve Falciani, who some call the "Edward Snowden of Tax Evasion", to five years in prison for leaking bank records and tax documents while he was working at HSBC.

The 43 year old French-Italian national was sentenced in absentia on November 27, 2015 for corporate espionage. Falciani leaked documents that showed HSBC's Swiss private bank supported tax evasion, allowing its customers to hide $255 billion from tax authorities. The Geneva bank also permitted the illegal activities of arms dealers, even profiting from their business according to a report from The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Falciani had leaked the records of over 120,000 HSBC customers, amounting to over 76 gigabytes of raw data, after copying them to his personal computer while he was working for the bank as head of computer security in 2008 according to AFP.

In an interview with CBC News in 2010, Falciani defends his actions saying, "I came to the point that something was very wrong and should be changed. A huge industry is made just to go around rules that we can't go around as simple citizens." His actions caused investigations in France, Italy, Britain, India, and Canada, among other countries.

As noble as that statement may sound, HSBC does not believe him. Carlo Bulletti, working with the prosecution on the case, told The Guardian, that he thought that Falciani only wanted to sell the data and that "the whole construct of the white knight is just a web of lies." 

For his part, Falciani has never denied his actions and has cooperated with governmental authorities.

Charged in December 2014 after a six year investigation, Falciani's actions were among the first to reveal how the wealthy used offshore banking networks to hide income and/or evade paying tax.

Switzerland's answer to having a requirement for its banks to support information transparency has never been clear. The country has agreed to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), allowing a kind of transparency with the IRS through an Intergovernmental Agreement.

In a separate investigation by Swiss prosecutors, HSBC had to pay a settlement of $39 million for "organizational deficiencies." The settlement will allow the Swiss authorities to not publicize the findings of their investigation.

Falciani was in France during the time of the trial and because France does not extradite its citizens, he is able to avoid serving the sentence.