Banking whistleblower’s ‘next’ crusade: clean cryptocurrency

Falciani plans to launch ‘ethical’ crypto-token

MADRID, Feb 9, (RTRS): One of banking’s most wanted whistleblowers, Frenchman Herve Falciani, has picked unlikely new weapons to fight moneylaundering and fraud – cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology behind it.

Living in self-imposed exile in Spain, the former HSBC systems engineer whose leaks of client data triggered a series of high-profile tax investigations is working with Spanish academics and fintech experts on a cryptocurrency he thinks regulators could embrace.

He plans to launch an “ethical” crypto-token, called Tabu, making it traceable thanks to a certificate showing its clean record. Tax-dodgers, shady businesses, hackers and criminals often use cryptocurrencies to hide their transactions.

“What happens with any innovation or any technology is that it can be used in the bad way or maybe used in a friendly way with a social impact, positive social impact,” Falciani, who is part of a witness protection programme, told Reuters in an interview in a neutral location in Madrid.

Falciani argues that blockchain – the technology behind cryptocurrencies that verifies encrypted transaction records and shares them across a network – can add transparency to any electronic transaction, helping the fight against fraud.

The project is developed by a nonprofit entity Tactical Whistleblowers founded by the Monaco-born IT engineer in Spain. The group includes various academics, mainly mathematicians, from the Valencia Polytechnic University in eastern Spain.

Last year, which marked a decade since the “Falciani List” leak, the Spanish high court rejected Switzerland’s second extradition request for Falciani, who said the renewed public attention helped generate investor interest in Tabu.