HSBC Swiss leaks: Spain's Podemos party hires whistleblower Falciani to combat tax evasion and fraud

Spain's new left-wing party Podemos has appointed Hervé Falciani, the whistleblower who revealed formerly secret account information about tax evaders at HSBC's Swiss banking arm, to draft a report on measures to combat fiscal fraud.

French IT expert Falciani has agreed to work with the party "to prepare a report, a kind of political programme, on how to combat fraud and tax evasion with legislation and government regulation", according to El Diario, an online Spanish newspaper.

The party's Internal Participation Secretary, Luis Alegre, confirmed the news, saying: "We have asked Falciani to draw up a report for Podemos. He will meet Pablo Iglesias this evening".

Alegre reiterated the protest party's desire to step up the fight against tax evasion during a press conference that coincided with the publication of the so-called "Falciano list".

"The fight against tax evasion and has always been one of the priorities of Podemos," Alegre said.

The announcement was made after Spanish media published the list of tax avoiding Spanish nationals, but the Spanish Socialist Party is yet to make a formal demand for Falciani to appear before the Spanish Congress's Tax Commission.

Jailed – and indicted

Falciani was initially on the run from Swiss authorities after they sought to charge him with stealing bank account data from his old employer HSBC in 2009.

While Switzerland is continuing its pursuit of Falciani - the Swiss attorney general charged him with data theft from HSBC and industrial espionage for leaking details of the bank accounts on 11 December 2014 - the former IT engineer has been laying the groundwork for a political career in Spain.

In October 2013, he kicked off the start of an anti-corruption wing of Partido X (X Party), the party which emerged from the "indignados" movement with the intention of breaking the hegemony of the People's party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE).

There, he assumed the role of anti-corruption adviser, before becoming the party's first candidate for the May European Elections.

The elections' final turnout was 0.64% of votes (100,561) for the X Party, while Pablo Iglesias' We Can (Podemos) party won 5 seats and 8.0% of the votes (1.2 million).