Chitra Subramaniam | The News Minute | June 26, 2014 | 2.12 pm ISTGeneva, June 26, 2014 – The Finance Ministry of India has connected with Swiss authorities as part of its bid to track and trace tax evaders and money launderers. Mario Tuor, a spokesperson for the Federal Finance Ministry of Switzerland told The News Minute they have received a request earlier this week and will respond appropriately. “The new Indian government has contacted us – we will follow our procedures,” Tuor said and refused to comment on the nature of request or the number of names. This note to Switzerland follows the announcement by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to the effect that India would speed up the process of securing the names of people who may have hidden their wealth illegally in Swiss banks.It may be recalled that the Federal Finance Ministry had confirmed on June 2nd 2014 that some names had been sent to India. The current exchange of names follows the establishment of the Special Investigating Team (SIT) by the Narendra Modi government to bring black money back to India. India had received a list of names from the French government following the theft of a CD from the HSBC bank. Switzerland does not entertain any exchange of information including commenting on stolen data. Swiss sources tell TNM some governments, like the French, for example, did additional work on the stolen information about their citizens’ accounts held illegally in foreign countries. If additional work has been done by the country seeking assistance, the Swiss proceed on a case by case basis to examine the new evidence. It is not known if India has done additional work on the material available with it. Read The News Minute reports here.