June 3, 2016
Police have searched the headquarters of Santander Bank in Madrid after suspicions were raised that the bank was linked to money laundering and tax evasion on the part of some of its clients.
Santander issued a statement saying it had “received a request for information about the movements of certain accounts between different entities”. It added that it was collaborating with the authorities and “supplying all the available information”.
The case involves the continuing investigation into the Falciani list of accounts from HSBC’s Swiss private bank in Geneva, leaked by IT worker Hervé Falciani in 2008. The list included the names of some 130,000 suspected tax evaders, 659 of whom were Spanish. The Spanish tax office believes that as much as €6bn was concealed in these 659 accounts. Emilio Botín, then chief executive of Santander, was the most prominent Spanish name on Falciani’s list, along with several members of his family. The Botín family has run the bank since 1909. Botín made a €200m settlement with the Spanish tax agency, which represented 10% of the sum involved, but tax evasion charges were dropped after he made the settlement. His daughter Ana Patricia became CEO when he died in 2014 – she previously ran Santander in the UK.