HSBC Bank HSBC Banco - Brasil Fraud, misappropiation, HSBC Rio de Janeiro Nationwide

 My name is Antônio Pedro Lacerda de Barros, and I am writing to you regarding a nightmarish 18-year legal battle that I have waged against Bamerindus Bank in Brazil and its successor, HSBC Bank (Brazil). Sadly, my story is not unfamiliar to anyone who has followed HSBC in the news the last few years and, in fact, bears many striking resemblances to the following story, which was reported this year by Guardian Money: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jan/04/hsbc-subjects-borrower-misery-loan-repayments Like the customer in the above story, I have been fighting HSBC in the courts for almost two decades after my bank account with Bamerindus Bank was sacked by branch employees in the early 1990s. HSBC purchased the assets and liabilities of Bamerindus in 1997 and, in so doing, assumed all the outstanding obligations of Bamerindus. The issue of whether or not HSBC Brazil is responsible for all liabilities of Bamerindus is a settled issue in Brazilian jurisprudence, and has been for over a decade. I have hundreds of pages of supporting legal precedent, if you would like to review it. Indeed, HSBC itself says on several of its international websites and publications that it purchased the assets and liabilites of Bamerindus in 1997. As such, from now on I will use the terms "Bamerindus" and "HSBC" interchangeably. My story began when an employee at the Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro branch of HSBC confessed to me in 1995 that bank employees, including employees at two different branches, had been illegally removed funds from my bank accounts. A court-appointed expert found that the partial total of these withdrawals was about $800,000 United States dollars, or about $2 million United States dollars, in today's terms, and that's without including certain legal interest that HSBC will eventually be obliged to pay. The outrageous thing is that, because HSBC has for 18 years refused to provide all records of withdrawals from my account, no court expert can really quantify how much money HSBC confiscated from my account! These employees' "modus operandi" was as follows: a. withdrawals were made from my accounts using cheques that I didn't sign; b. funds were electronically withdrawn from my account, invested for the benefit of third parties, and then the principal was returned to my account on the same day or on the next day. I filed a police complaint in 1995, and the police superintendent in charge found that HSBC had been involved in wrongdoing. An employee of the HSBC branch where I did my banking made a full statement outlining in detail the illicit activities committed by HSBC employees. Also in 1995, HSBC filed a suit wanting to pay me a token sum for the losses and damages I sustained. At the same time, I filed suit against HSBC asking that HSBC provide copies of all cheques withdrawn from my account as well as proof of all other withdrawals. After a long legal odyssey, during which HSBC used high-priced legal talent to delay any judgment, a Rio de Janeiro court finally found that HSBC had literally made over 2,000 undue withdrawals form my count. As mentioned, in today's dollars, and without counting 18% a year interest from 1995 to the present, a court-approved expert estimated that the total amount illegally withdrawn from my account is over US$2 million. Indeed, the expert couldn't calculate the total amount because HSBC has, for 18 years, refused to provide copies of all relevant records involving my account. This is strikingly similar to the British HSBC customer in the link I provided above, whose documents and records HSBC also conveniently "misplaced." After that decision, HSBC has spent the last six years trying to delay making restitution to me. First, they seized on an esoteric issue involving interest rates to question exactly how much interest they would have to pay me. Second, when I asked the judge to at least force HSBC to pay about US$20,000 in legal fees to me, as I have been representing myself pro se against HSBC's army of lawyers since 1995, HSBC began a relentless prosecution of me that continues to this day. The judge agreed to require HSBC to pay me the legal fees above, after which HSBC appealed, won the appeal, and asked the appeals judge to freeze my bank accounts and my wife's bank accounts to get the $20,000 back! Bear in mind that this is the same bank that has already been condemned to make restitution to me for 2,000 undue withdrawals from my account totaling at least US$2 million which, with interest, would come out to at least US$6.4 million today! The Brazilian Superior Court of Justice has just agreed to hear my appeal on this matter, ruling that HSBC has put me at great risk by means of its delaying tactics. What type of financial institution would rather drag things out in the courts than make restitution to a customer whose account was sacked by the bank's own employees? What kind of financial institution would refuse for 18 years to provide records of all undue withdrawals from my accounts, because the more withdrawals are known, the more it will owe me? The answer is: the same financial institution, HSBC, that was fined for opening accounts and laundering money for drug kingpins in Mexico, opening accounts and running money for terrorist groups throughout the world, colluding in the manipulation of the LIBOR interbank rate, and many other wrongdoings that have severely tarnished its reputations in the last few years. I can only hope that my story, which I am willing to document in as much detail as necessary, will serve as a cautionary tale to current and prospective HSBC customers, and will also serve to convince the relevant regulatory authorities to take tougher measures against HSBC to ensure that this institution never again returns to its checkered past. Best regards, Antonio Pedro Lacerda de Barros Rio de Janeiro, Brazil