Front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal:  UBS Tax Crackdown Widens to Hong Kong, by Carrick Mollenkamp:

The U.S. crackdown on clients of UBS AG is widening into a global hunt, with the government detailing in court documents how the Swiss bank and outside advisers helped Americans hide money using enterprises set up in Hong Kong.

For the first time in the government's long-running bid to ferret out the names of U.S. tax-evaders from the Swiss bank's client list, plea agreements entered in the case are providing a clearer picture of UBS's sophisticated efforts to help Americans hide income or the existence of foreign bank accounts.

On Friday, John McCarthy, a UBS client in California, agreed to plead guilty to one count of failing to file an annual report to the Treasury Department. A document filed with the plea shows the tax scheme relied in part on channeling funds to a Swiss UBS account held in the name of a Hong Kong entity, the second time accounts in the Asian financial hub have figured in these cases.

The Hong Kong link is important because the Justice Department and IRS are apparently using that as a clue of wrongdoing as they plow through some 250 names that UBS turned over to the U.S. government, say people familiar with the Justice Department probe. The bank handed over the names as part of a criminal settlement it agreed to in February.