(Bloomberg) -- A former Geneva-based HSBC Holdings Plc banker was found guilty of money laundering, but cleared of related drug charges in a French trial of four brothers accused of operating a sophisticated ring to distribute drug money to wealthy clients.

Nessim El Maleh, formerly a director at HSBC Private Bank Suisse, was fined 200,000 euros ($229,000) by a Paris criminal court Friday. His brother Meyer, who ran a Geneva wealth-management firm, was sentenced to 6 years in jail and fined 1 million euros after judges said he was the mastermind of the scheme.

Their older brother, Mardoché, who was accused of distributing as much as 12 million euros between 2010 and 2012 in bags full of cash to the owners of the offshore accounts, received a three-year sentence, two of which were suspended. Nessim El Maleh also got a suspended jail sentence.

France has been cracking down on tax fraud operated via Switzerland with the conviction of a former minister and a trial against UBS Group AG started earlier this month. The affair is one of the highest profile white-collar cases in Paris since the trial of former Societe Generale SA trader Jerome Kerviel engrossed the country a decade ago.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gaspard Sebag in Paris at gsebag@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser

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