ANYONE who squirrels away money in an offshore bank account, confident that it will remain a secret, should think again.

In the last three years, there have been a series of prominent cases in which formerly secretive banks, including UBS and Julius Baer in Switzerland and the LGT Group, the Liechtenstein royal bank, have had to notify clients that former employees had taken their account data and were about to make it public. And now the founder of WikiLeaks has indicated that he has another trove of documents from Julius Baer that he could release any day.

Yet some wealthy people continue to turn to offshore accounts, including growing numbers who are now going to Singapore and Hong Kong in the wake of the crackdown on private banking in Switzerland.

Asher Rubinstein, a lawyer in New York who specializes in complicated tax matters, said he had people come into his office who were willing to risk disclosure. He said most people who asked about opening an account offshore or declaring an existing one realized the risks they were taking.