European customs staff seize more cash amid bank secrecy crackdown

There was nothing extraordinary about the casually dressed businessman waiting on a Paris train platform except, it turned out, for the envelopes he carried - stuffed with €350,000 (HK$3.7 million) in cash, and seized by French customs agents as he prepared to depart for Belgium.

The passenger, Boris Boillon, 43, was a former French ambassador to Iraq and Tunisia with two degrees from prestigious universities and a Legion of Honour medal. But to customs agents, who seized the money in July, he was just one of a growing number of "cash commuters".

At the borders of European countries in economic crisis, customs agents say they are seizing increasing amounts of undeclared cash exceeding the €10,000 that each traveller is allowed to carry. They find it stashed in luggage, cake boxes, potato-chip bags, biscuit tins and sometimes even children's pockets. The cash, often in bundles of €500 notes, is moving with political currents as some Europeans seek to hide their wealth from rising taxes, high-profile tax investigations and tightening rules at Swiss banks and other traditional havens.

The agents say they are routinely detaining business travellers who are on their way to European financial capitals, carrying minimal luggage and behaving nervously. "We see professionals and businessmen in insurance and banking, like him, every day," said Philippe Bock, secretary general of the French solidarity trade union for customs agents, referring to Boillon.

"Three hundred and fifty thousand euros was nothing exceptional," Bock said. "Every month it passes like that, and there's more and more money because of the crisis."

For decades, banking secrecy laws in Switzerland made banks there a refuge for foreigners hoping to keep assets away from official notice. But Switzerland signed a treaty in October providing for the automatic exchange of tax information with depositors' home countries, and bankers have been warning clients to make tax declarations or risk having their Swiss accounts closed. That has left many would-be tax avoiders with little choice but to move their money around the old-fashioned way.