The fashion designer Valentino Garavani appears on a list of almost 7,000 Italian account holders, reported in Italian newspapers on 12 January 2011, who allegedly held secret offshore bank accounts and are now under investigation.
The 700 people being investigated by the Rome prosecutor's office are accused of holding secret offshore accounts in Switzerland, according to data stolen from a Swiss unit of HSBC bank by an IT worker four years ago.
The names reported in Italian newspapers included several fashion and film world celebrities and top business figures such as fashion designer Renato Balestra and jeweller Gianni Bulgari. The majority are wealthy, lesser-known individuals.
Italian investigators earlier said that the sum held by Italians in the accounts on the HSBC list totalled 5.3 billion euros and that 132 of the accounts held sums of more than 10 million euros. An amnesty law that ran out last year allowed Italians with foreign accounts to repatriate their money by paying a fine.
