Spanish court investigates 40 cases in HSBC tax probe

(Adds details from the court's investigation)

MADRID, June 3 (Reuters) - The Spanish High Court said on Friday said it was investigating 40 cases of possible tax evasion following leaks of sensitive information from HSBC's Swiss private bank.

Earlier police acting on the orders of the court visited local bank Santander's Madrid headquarters to seek documents related to a number of accounts as part of the probe, the court and police said.

The Spanish investigation is one of many undertaken by national tax authorities as a result of the leak in 2008 of extensive client data belonging to HSBC's private bank by Herve Falciani, a former IT (Other OTC: ITGL - news) employee at the bank.

The Spanish court on Friday said all 40 of the people and families under investigation had been on Falciani's list.

Falciani, a French citizen, has said he is a whistleblower trying to help governments track down citizens who used Swiss accounts to evade tax. France, Austria, Belgium and Argentina have also launched their own investigations.

Santander said the authorities had asked it for information related to the movement of funds between banks and was collaborating with the investigation. An HSBC spokeswoman in London declined to comment.

Last year Falciani was sentenced by a Swiss court in his absence to five years in prison for aggravated industrial espionage.

However, he may not serve time in Switzerland since he lives in France and there are no legal proceedings against him there. (Reporting By Maria Vega Paul and Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Greg Mahlich)