POLITICS: Ex-Banker to Give WikiLeaks Offshore Bank Account Data!

A Swiss ex-banker will give WikiLeaks data today on some 2,000 individuals with offshore bank accounts, he tells Reuters. He plans to make the handover at a London news conference that Julian Assange himself may attend. Rudolf Elmer, who headed the Cayman Islands office of Julius Baer until he was fired in 2002, says his goal is “educating society about offshore abuses and how they work.” The data includes information on multimillionaires and firms based in the US, Germany, and Britain, he says.

“The story is really about banks and banking, about bank secrecy and the damage it does to society when it's employed to hide tax evasion, money laundering, and corruption,” says a lawyer for Elmer, who goes on trial in Switzerland on Wednesday for breaching bank secrecy. “I believe in the system of WikiLeaks," says Elmer, who added that the data covers the years 1990 and 2009 and includes documents given to him by other whistleblowers. "Such a thing has to exist. WikiLeaks was my last hope.” Reuters notes that much of the material has already been given to officials in countries where the account holders are believed to live.