The lists: Names but no substance

this amount can actually be collected. And let’s not forget that the list was in fact based on a previous list originally published in 2012, and that nothing came of that. Over the last six years, the publication of lists has been associated with the notion of a cleansing of the system and each government’s decisiveness to crack down on tax evasion, corruption and the shadow economy. Every so often, the names of well-known doctors, lawyers, artists and public figures in general are exposed following inspections by members of the Financial Crime Squad (SDOE), offering society a temporary sense of release and that things are finally being put right. This practice reached a peak with the so-called Lagarde list of Greek depositors at a Geneva branch of HSBC and the turbulence following its publication. The lists, like popular novels, our era’s version of Classics Illustrated, ultimately confirm the exact opposite of what they set out to do in the first place: the existence of government protegees’ powerful networks, the inefficiency of administrative services and the kind of despair that those in the top echelons of local politics find themselves getting into each time. Any initial hope that something could change and that for once those responsible will end up paying (in all the various meanings of the