News media outlets in Costa Rica are beginning to provide details on the highly controversial Swiss Leaks scandal involving millions upon millions of dollars stashed away in deposit and investment accounts at the controversial HSBC bank in Switzerland. Allegations about the involvement high-profile business people and politicians were reported by the press in Costa Rica, but initial investigations have uncovered two individuals who may have acted as straw men.

First of, here’s a background on the case, which is a project undertaken by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ):

• On December 22, 2008, Swiss federal police handcuffed 36-year-old Hervé Falciani, a systems specialist they suspected of stealing data from HSBC Private Bank (Suisse), his employer, and trying to sell it to banks in Lebanon. They seized his computer, searched his Geneva home and interrogated him for hours.
• Falciani’s HSBC data trove ended up first in the hands of authorities in France, which then indicted London-based HSBC for illegal direct marketing to French nationals, money laundering and facilitating tax fraud
• HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) has continued to offer services to clients who had been unfavorably named by the United Nations, in court documents and in the media as connected to arms trafficking, blood diamonds and bribery.
• HSBC served those close to discredited regimes such as that of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, former Tunisian president Ben Ali and current Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.
• Clients who held HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland include former and current politicians from Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kenya, Romania, India, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Lebanon, Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Paraguay, Djibouti, Senegal, Philippines and Algeria.
• The bank repeatedly reassured clients that it would not disclose details of accounts to national authorities, even if evidence suggested that the accounts were undeclared to tax authorities in the client’s home country. Bank employees also discussed with clients a range of measures that would ultimately allow clients to avoid paying taxes in their home countries.

According to national newspaper La Nacion, a 46-year old courier from Pocora in Guacimo, a town located in the Caribbean region of Costa Rica, is the principal in charge of two sociedades anónimas (similar to stock corporations) that have deposits in excess of $30 million at the secretive and controversial HSBC in Switzerland. According to journalist Patricia Leiton, the two companies are named Vanguard Trading and Realco Management. Ms. Leiton cited information published by Semanario Universidad, a weekly publication with close ties to the University of Costa Rica.

Furthermore, daily tabloid Diario Extra reported on the business dealings of Claudio Quesada Portuguez, a police officer who passed away in 2013. The late Mr. Quesada was a resident of La Carpio, a turbulent neighborhood of San Jose, and he was the treasurer of Realco Management. Reporter Daniel Chinchilla Salazar searched corporate records and found that Mr. Quesada was registered as a principal in nearly 500 business entities registered in Costa Rica. It is interesting to note that these registrations took place days after the demise of the policeman, which suggests corporate foul play.

This ICIJ project denotes data journalism at its finest, which happens to be an investigative field fostered by the news media in Costa Rica.  Figures reported by the ICIJ indicate that $23 million from Costa Rica are stashed in the HSBC accounts.