Breakfast with the FT: Herve Falciani

Arriving half an hour early at the restaurant at the top of Tour Montparnasse, one of the tallest and most hated buildings in Paris, I have ample time to survey the strange setting for my breakfast with Herve Falciani, the IT specialist turned HSBC whistleblower who carried out one of the largest and most spectacular data leaks in banking history.

At 7.45am, the modernist white tables and orange-lined chairs are empty of customers, while reggae music thumps away in the background. I start to wonder why the man the media have nicknamed the "Edward Snowden of banking" wants to meet here: if not for the ambience or the food - the breakfast menu features a pithy offering of pastries, coffee and little else - then, perhaps, it is for the restaurant's seclusion.

For the past seven years, Falciani has moved from country to country - sometimes adopting an assumed identity and wearing a disguise, often accompanied by bodyguards. In early 2008, Falciani, then a systems engineer working at the Geneva offices of HSBC, left Switzerland for Lebanon, taking with him data relating to more than 100,000 of the bank's customers. Some, among them the Swiss authorities and his former employer, claim Falciani then attempted to sell the data. Falciani, meanwhile, maintains he wanted to expose a "broken" banking system, "which encouraged tax evasion". "I was confronted by stupid things," he later tells me, "I had no choice."

Either way, the leaked data wreaked havoc. They provided evidence that Europe's largest bank was actively helping clients to avoid taxes by various means, including setting up offshore accounts and giving them large and untraceable "bricks" of cash in foreign currencies. The data released by Falciani have been used by governments in countries including France, Spain and the UK to recover hundreds of millions in back taxes from individuals. An ongoing criminal probe into the bank, and investigations regarding people on his list appear to be only just beginning.

A few days before our meeting, the first criminal conviction related to the leaks was announced, with 73-year-old Arlette Ricci, the heir to the Nina Ricci perfume fortune, handed a three-year sentence by a Paris court for tax fraud. Falciani himself will face a court hearing after being indicted in Switzerland at the end of last year on charges of industrial espionage and violating bank secrecy laws.

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As I leaf through my notes, a cleaner appears. I barely have time to wonder if she is an undercover agent before Falciani, 43, walks in, not obviously disguised but tanned with a precisely trimmed beard and wearing a dark suit and black shirt. He shakes my hand firmly and we take our seats.

Once Falciani has ordered us coffee, fruit juice and mini-pastries, I ask him why he chose this restaurant. He says he likes it here because it is usually quite empty and it offers great views of the Eiffel Tower. Also, he explains in heavily accented English, the choice is symbolic. Too many people want to ask him about the details of his private life. He hopes our discussion can be "a bit elevated", like the restaurant.

. . .

Born in 1972, Falciani grew up in Monaco where, despite a relatively humble family background, he was exposed at a young age to the glamour of the moneyed elite. He went to the same school as Prince Albert of Monaco, he says, and dated the daughter of the former Formula One racing driver Gilles Villeneuve. In Seisme sur la planete finance, his book newly published in French, he says that he was awed by the quiet halls when he visited Sudameris bank, where his father worked in private banking.

He went to the University of Nice to study physics and mathematics. He initially worked nights in security at the Monte Carlo casino to help pay his way. It was there, working with a team of former policemen and investigators that, he says, he got a crash course in the dark side of Monaco and how the principality "facilitated money laundering and refused to co-operate with the authorities". After six months, he moved to the casino's banking division, organising credit for wealthy customers.

Moving to HSBC Monaco in 2000, he tells me he attempted to improve a weakness in security that allowed some clients to avoid tax. But his complaints fell on deaf ears as they "did not want change". (HSBC has denied he made any such attempts.) Increasingly frustrated, by 2004 he began to discuss with other disgruntled colleagues how they might use public opinion to "try and change the system".

As a waiter brings a basket of pastries to our table, with some toasted brioche and orange juice, he says that it was also in 2004, via his former colleagues from the casino, he was put in touch with what he calls "the Network", described in his book as a group of "international anti-tax-evasion crusaders" made up of intelligence officers, high-level officials, spies, policemen and lawyers.

By 2008, following his move to HSBC Private Bank in Geneva and after several years of deliberation and planning, "the Network" had given him the technical expertise to steal the data from the bank and the legal knowledge to make them public.

<>"It was a complex operation and, as you know, I'm not a journalist or an investigator or an attorney or a lawyer, but people from all these fields were required [to leak the files] . . . I needed technical help to access the data as well [because] I didn't have the credentials," he says, moving a croissant to a clean white plate but leaving it untouched.

Falciani claims he has made powerful enemies and fears for his life. In 2012, for example, he says he left France for Spain after warnings that his life was in danger. He is protected not only by local police in France but also, he says, by "the Network".

There has never been any proof presented of this "Network", which, Falciani claims, includes 10 people in the bank and around 100 people globally. Both HSBC and the Swiss authorities claim he acted alone to steal the data for personal profit, only contacting various authorities after his arrest by the Swiss in Geneva in 2008, where he then turned whistleblower to protect himself.

As "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple starts playing, I probe a bit deeper. Why does he think all these spies and lawyers were supposedly helping him? Were they moral crusaders, too, or did they have their own motives?

A bit of both, he says, but certainly some had their own agenda - not least the CIA. "HSBC was a valuable asset for the CIA," he claims. "We have an economic war [between US and European banks] and now we had US interests who had found an entry point in the bastion of the European banking system."

Not for the last time during our breakfast, I wonder if I am conversing with a fantasist. Is the CIA really looking to hurt the Swiss banking industry to strengthen America's own banks? Does "the Network" even exist?

Falciani says he can prove the involvement of "the Network". "If someone takes me to court, the judge can decide [if there was CIA involvement or not]. I have the elements, you can find them still, which is pretty rare [in the intelligence world]," he says, before adding that "the Network" not only helped him take the data from HSBC but came up with a plan to get the files into the hands of the right authorities.

. . .

Whether you think that Falciani is the public face of an international secret anti-tax-evasion network or a simple chancer depends on whose version of events you believe. The Swiss authorities' version is that he stole the data in 2007, then the following year went to Lebanon accompanied by another HSBC employee, Georgina Mikhael, and tried to sell the files. One of the banks in Lebanon alerted the Swiss Bankers Association and the game was up.

On December 22 2008, he was arrested in Geneva but escaped, promptly fleeing to France, where the authorities seized the data but refused to extradite him back to Switzerland.

The version he tells me is that he went to Lebanon at the behest of the intelligence agencies and, using the alias of Ruben Al-Chidiak, a Middle Eastern businessman, went to visit a number of local banks to provoke the Swiss authorities into launching an investigation. He did not want to sell anything but it was the only way he could ensure that the sensitive data would get into the hands of the right people when he was finally arrested in France and the data were seized.

"Let me explain something to you. If you go to the attorney-general [in Switzerland] with stolen data, they will put you in jail. We had to trick the system. Because it was seized in France, it was legal. We had a network of lawyers to help us with the plan."

Falciani spent several years co-operating with the French government as a database of 2,000 Greeks with accounts at a Geneva branch of HSBC was handed over to Greek authorities in 2010, prompting an outcry in the crisis-struck country.

In 2012, after years on the run from the Swiss authorities, he was arrested in Spain and spent five and a half months in prison while courts deliberated whether to extradite him to Switzerland. This was also done intentionally, he says, to hurry along the criminal investigation into HSBC in France.

I ask whether he contemplated selling the data at some point. "I was in contact with the US [intelligence agencies] and others, even the German [intelligence agencies] and . . . it would have been easy and fair to have asked for money. It would be so silly to sell it to the bank, though. I had other [people] who would have offered hundreds of millions."

Taking his first bite of the tiny croissant on his plate, he leans over to me conspiratorially and says: "I will obtain money though, I tell you, I will obtain money . . . I can turn to many countries and say, 'Hey, I did that, now it's time to support me.' " Looking me in the eye intently, he adds: "They will pay me for what I have done, which is worth a lot."

He says that more information about private banking could yet emerge. "I am just one side [of 'the Network'], but we have a lot of things [we can do] . . . This is something I, hopefully, will not have to manage myself. If I have to help raise public awareness about that, I will expose myself, even if there is a risk . . . I may be killed of course."

. . .

In the time I have managed to down three mini-pastries, Falciani, in true Parisian style, has barely touched anything other than the coffee and still has half of his first pain au chocolate on his plate. I take a sip of orange juice and, resisting the urge to take his untouched croissants, turn the conversation to more personal issues.

What's your life like now? "Most of what you would imagine is true. I have no fixed location. I don't rely much on communication technology. I have sometimes to work in countries where I am not allowed to be because of Interpol, such as Greece."

Though reluctant to reveal more for safety reasons, he says his wife and children are now living outside France under police protection. They cannot talk on the phone, so they have to use Skype or "other methods" to talk to each other. My questions about his wife and how he contacts her appear to make him upset, his well-tanned hands starting to fidget. "Do you want a sample of my DNA as well?" he says, holding out his thumb towards me.

I move on, asking how much danger his life could really be in, given that banks do not, to my knowledge, go around killing people. "Fine, but how many clients' interests are involved in this? Is there a chance you think that one of them wants to prevent any extension of the inquiry? Do you think that exists?"

Attempting to lighten the mood, I ask whether a little part of him secretly enjoys having to act like a spy, using fake names, special phones and secret disguises. "Am I someone who likes to wear a disguise, to dress up like a woman maybe, wearing eyeliner?" he says, laughing. "You don't need to disguise yourself most of the time. The best way usually is being in the crowd. Crowds are the best way to protect yourself, just like it is for sheep."

He did say he had been taught some spy tradecraft by people in "the Network". "Sure, I have been trained," he says, moving his weight forward and looking me in the eye. "You know I can kill you with my hands."

He laughs heartily. I shuffle uncomfortably in my chair and quickly turn the conversation to what he plans to do in the future. He says he hopes he can play a greater role in European politics. Last May he ran unsuccessfully for the European Parliament for Spanish protest party Partido X, telling me his chief role was to "raise awareness" for the anti-corruption party. In February, he teamed up with Spain's far-left Podemos party to advise them on tax policy, agreeing to help draw up a report on how to combat tax evasion - a potentially important issue in Spain's general election this year. He says he wants to do more work advising European governments on tax issues.

Since lifting the lid on the alleged underbelly of Swiss banking, I ask what has been his most satisfying moment. Falciani says it was shedding light on the rotten system. "It was about revealing how, when you see a nice confident board of directors presenting the perfect state of their institutions, realising how fake this really is . . . Banks are still not able to control [what is happening]."

This month the French courts placed HSBC under formal investigation on allegations it helped clients avoid taxes. More than 60 other trials are expected in France alone, according to French prosecutors.

Falciani says his case is similar to that of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden "in terms of impact" on the world, but that they are now in very different circumstances.

He says he will always fear for his life, and if the day comes when he no longer feels his actions can benefit the cause, he will, "of course, disappear. There are a lot of islands in French Polynesia that are wild. I can go there and have a quiet living."

As we both get to our feet, I ask if he has security downstairs or with us in the room. "I have security protocol," he says, looking at me as if I had just asked him for his pin number. "Do you want my DNA as well?" he says again, before sliding off into the shabby lift without me.

Michael Stothard is the FT's Paris correspondent

Illustration by Seb Jarnot

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