The Canada Revenue Agency has received details on nearly 1,800 Swiss bank accounts registered to Canadians that were uncovered by French prosecutors during a probe into the clients of Europe’s largest bank, according to the Globe & Mail.

For more than a year, investigators in the southern French city of Nice have examined banking records from the Geneva offices of HSBC. The documents were stolen by a former employee of HSBC and handed over to investigators.

Although it is not illegal to have a Swiss bank account, Canadian residents are required to declare all of their worldwide income to the Canadian revenue authorities.

HSBC has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and has repeatedly censured France for relying on stolen documents to investigate potential fiscal crimes and pursue unpaid taxes.

While Swiss authorities clamour for help from the French in returning the man behind the theft – a former IT employee named Hervé Falciani – he remains a free man near Nice, where he has helped guide investigators through the voluminous records. Governments such as those of Germany have been prepared to pay to obtain this stolen information, as also happened when data was stolen from LGT, the Liechtenstein private bank, earlier in the noughties.