HSBC, BNP Paribas, Exane (a subsidiary of BNP), Société Générale, Natixis… These major French banks were targeted on Tuesday March 28 by searches by the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF), said Le Monde. The authorities simply confirmed ongoing operations at the headquarters of five financial institutions, without specifying which ones.
The searches “are part of five preliminary investigations opened on December 16 and 17, 2021 on the count of aggravated money laundering of aggravated tax evasion, and for some of aggravated tax evasion, relating to the so-called “CumCum” fraud scheme, a tax scheme on dividends, said the PNF.
>> To read also on France 24: “CumEx Files”: Hanno Berger, the alleged mastermind of the 140 billion euro scandal
Proof of the scale of these operations: they were carried out by 16 magistrates and involved more than 150 investigators from the judicial finance investigation service for several months. They were carried out in collaboration with the German authorities, because Germany is at the heart of the “Cum-Ex files” scandal.
A 140 billion euro fraud
Revealed in 2018 by a group of sixteen media, this case of massive tax fraud concerns amounts initially estimated at 55 billion euros, which were largely revised upwards in 2021 by the consortium, rising to 140 billion euros over twenty years.
The so-called “CumCum” practice in financial jargon consists of escaping the tax on dividends which must in principle be paid by foreign holders of shares in listed French companies.
To take advantage of the scheme, these owners of shares, small savers or large investment funds, entrust their securities to a bank when the tax is collected, thus escaping taxation.
The banks would have played an intermediary role, while charging a commission to the holders of shares.
In France, this scandal prompted the collective “Citizens in Organized Bands” – bringing together 250 taxpayers – to file a complaint once morest X at the end of 2018. But “the justice system had waited to have the analysis of the tax administration before opening preliminary investigations, at the end of 2021”, specified Le Monde.
With AFP
