Sixty-nine people with links to Zambia were among the 100,000 clients of banking giant HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary holding $48.3 million (K314 M) in their accounts. This is according to data from a former IT employee of HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary who hacked into client accounts and took almost 60,000 files before fleeing to France. The US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has summarized this data on an interactive global map on their website.
About 13 (19%) of the clients hold Zambian passports. The maximum amount associated with a single client connected to Zambia was $12.8 million (K83.2 M).
Zambia ranked 120 among the countries which had the largest dollar amounts within the leaked files. South Africa is the highest ranked African country with $2 billion in the accounts.
You can read the full report on http://www.icij.org/project/swiss-leaks/explore-swiss-leaks-data
I guess most of the loot belongs to FTJ’s clan, Thandiwe Banda and the twins..and the rest of the thieves that has stolen Zambian tax money.
I can bet you the Zambian lot there is for Maureen Mwanawasa, Chiluba and Kaseba Sata because they got overzealous with the international systems than understanding them. I believe RB because of his vast exposure to the international systems having been a top diplomat in the USA and his indelible ties to consecutive USA regimes and their systems, he must have instead been comfortable to stash his lot in some African countries and Turkey. M’membe, Mark Chona and Mutembo have stashed their leap from the task force in Cuba.
Why are you people complaining ? Zambia has been a Kleptocracy for a very long time !
And Thandiwe Banda? Not featuring?
This article is stating facts that the individuals are linked to Zambia. Most of the people responding to comments here are of Zambia origin (I will ‘gravely assume). Do you not find it strange that your default assumptions on the article is that most of that money was acquired through corruption??? I mean, there are Zambians or individuals linked to Zambia that have earned millions through shear hard work in private sector mostly. Do we brush them in the same stroke as people we are alledgin are ‘corrupt’??
We are the problem. Our mindless envy!!! And that is why we will remain only 120 out of the different countries/nationalities linked to those accounts.
Keep renting that flat you live in and driving that expensive car and writing to Lusaka Times
Our Money has been found. Lungu get that loot back and you are guaranteed 2016. This morons stole from us, now God is bringing back our cake.
Meant to type * the morons in MMD
@ Nzelu
Do you mean previous plunderers which now are educating current plunderers in the “art” of “democratic distribution of national wealth”?
Zambia and Africa has money. They morons in leadership take our money to Switzerland and enrich those nations. Aleshaday you are very correct, the plunder shall continue lol.
He won’t a poor president can easily be bribed!
Dream on, this Money will NEVER be returned!
We are dealing with POLITICS Of POVERTY & The BELLY!!
The system is such that, once one comes to power, they get a cut to keep “shtum”, while you the citizens queue up in the cold & rain to vote, & brutalize your neighbour / fellow citizen, all the while chanting party slogans until your voice is hoarse!
KEEP VOTING & CHANTING, while they skip all the way to a Fat Swiss account
RB made sure that the hunt for stolen money died with Mwanawasa. Now that we have RB as the puppet master, nothing will happen.
Easy to foretell events in Zambia…..
There are no other culprits !!! This is the FTJ, Francis Kaunda, Shamutete, and Xavier Chungu, looted monies. All we need is for the Swiss Bank to tell Zambia what amounts and under whose accounts the monies are. WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK!!!!!!! *****S!!
Mahtani at work!
How much of this is his percentage?
Thats the problem with us zambians, surely $48m is what we should be talking about, and we just hear swiss accounts and we jump, there are some honest hard working people in this country who are very wealthy that are not even known, people save alot of money in offshore accounts for their families, investments, political instability and so on. Its disappointing to read backward comments on such. Yes some of the money could belong to individuals that acquired it questionably but some of it could also belong to the honest hard working zambian….with this attitude and mentality its not surprising that our development as a nation is always static
stop being silly iwe,what hardwork did maureen do,don’t you know that she is one of the big looters to have appeared on the zambian scene.just that a lot of info is hidden from your small minds and there are no investigative journalists in zambia but suckers who lick politicians boots and an inept band of mps where does that leave you?its all ill gotten cash
We are not interested in money from those hard working Zambians. We are interested in money stolen from Zambians whether small or big. The culture of getting rich too quickly just because one is on government or has connections in government should come to and end (or at least kept at the barest minimum). The attitude of dismissing important clues is tantamount to voting into government people you know are not going to make any difference to the development of the country and yet expecting progress. Bull$hit.
Criminals destroying Zambia. Useless leadership and selfishness will replete the country.
Recycled materials should be banned from active politics of the belly.
Farmers,teacher, civil servants and students are not yet been payed by pathetic failures (PF).
Lungu has no vision, 3 weeks on the country is & under visionless Edgar Lungu.
Njala iza nyokola bambili pa zed sure.
The Skeleton Key
~206~
Most plunderers in other nations develop their home towns and give of philanthropic causes – internal laundering. Zambians and generally Africans think plunder means literally tearing a piece out of the flesh and hanging it out to dry in other lands. Yes, eventually they die and that money disappears as it nourishes the very countries they hide it in. We need a new politics, and a new behavior devoid of these useless, selfish i.d.iots! Let us also start inquiring into these I-got-rich-suddenly individuals who form cabals with criminals in governments and tender preserves.
Ha ha ha come-on guys $48m! Dangote has $16 billion ! That could be cash for one individual…Justdoit you are so right!
I hope it not any of our former or current politicians as this has been hacked and the account holders details were leaked so then the information is out there in somewhere in cyberspace. ..let me assure you if you are among them I will expose you! !
This is where it hurts. Zambia is poor and citizens, the majority , live in poverty. The infrastructure is way behind development or even maintenance. And then you hear of fellow country men and women who are so greedy and selfish, who dubiously earn the money or is it steal the money from the country and go stash it in developed countries’ so that the developed people can use that same money instead of supposedly serving the poor Zambia one way or another! Some of our brothers and sisters are just bad and unreal.
The sad thing is because that money is secretly stashed away when the pass away their children and families in Zambia have no acess to forever kept in the European bank creating a healthy profit for the bank.
If the money is linked to Zambian politicians then it is definitely ill gotten money.
Expose them. These are the real enemies of Zambia. Why can’t they open forex accounts in Zambian banks? This is stolen money that’s why they have stashed it outside.
No one should be spared and the act should start locally . The so called £12m dodgers who were supported by UKWA
What a kaleidoscope of views over the loot! Interesting how some people want to justify theft and laundering. To me, the money needs to get back into the country, period! Unfortunately no one in the security wings is able to do anything about it. If the so-called police cannot even deal with the lunacy of PF cadres, what more dealing with rich individuals who can buy them off a hundredfold?
What a country! and what a people!
Mind you, just $10M is a lot of money to amass in just a political career, later on $20M or $30M. That is why politicians are told to declare their assets at the onset. In short from a Datsun 120Y to a Bentley on a Zambian politicians salary in under 5 years is unconscionable. Do the math!!!
China, for example, has a reported 664 accounts, with 246 clients, and the highest amount for a single client being $84 million… yet you talk of $48.3 million for the whole Zambia.
The amount of money US48.3Mm is related to 96 bank accounts and 44 clients. The accounts were opened between 1988 -2006. This puts KK, FTJ in that time frame plus the looters from the ZCCM sale.
Now we need to find the murder weapon and test for DNA to get the culprits.
These must be the funds from days of UNIP, & later M.M.D – Chiluba Zamtrop account plunder.
Chilubas wife was about to buy shopping malls worth Millions of U.S. Dollars in Finland. Why is the current Government silent about such huge sums being plundered?? Of course they’ve shared these illicit spoils.
Currently there are deals where our politicians are sanctioning Corrupt decisions that benefit Rich mine owners, @ the expense of our poor Zambian women who are still dying in child birth, on floors without proper maternity facilities.
This is where that Cash in foreign banks is coming from.
I think with modern technologies (such as the internet), people travelling out of Zambia and around the world frequently, globalisation, and increased fraud and white collar crime preventative measures within Zambia, it should be much easier to clump these buffoons before they escape with the people’s monies
These were secret accounts set up for evading taxes or laundering illegal profits including drugs. Money laundering is a crime. Get the records. Find out the type of job or business for the source of the money. If they match let them go but if they don’t, the money was ill gotten. Let them spend time looking through burglar bars – from inside looking out. Zambia must show the citizens we are serious about crime in high places.