WikiLeaks Founder: Next Target Is 'Big US Bank'

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, has told Forbes Magazine about its next target. Photo by EPA/BGNES

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has told Forbes Magazine that the next leak would target a "big US bank" and will happen "early next year."

In the interview Assange refused to give details about the bank and only said it is as major US bank that still exists. He added that he expected that the leak would lead to investigations.

We have one related to a bank coming up, that's a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it's either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it," Assange said in the interview posted on the Forbes website.

He also said he was "not sure" about the results he wants to achieve with the leaks.

"I'm not sure. It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume," he said.

Assange also said that WikiLeaks has materials on many businesses and governments, including Russia, and that it has information on pharmaceutical companies.

However, he pointed out that in the future, the group may be focusing its efforts on exposing secrets about finance and the private sector, including banks across the world and other major companies.

"We have a lot of finance related things. Of the commercial sectors we've covered, finance is the most significant," Assange said.

His philosophy is that leaking information will mean good business for people who embrace ethical business practices and treat their employees well.

In his words, happy employees do not leak documents that might hurt their employer.

"Let's say you want to run a good company. It's nice to have an ethical workplace. Your employees are much less likely to screw you over if they're not screwing other people over," Assange told Forbes Magazine.

More than 250,000 cables were obtained by WikiLeaks and were given to major US media, which published them on Sunday, exposing inner workings of US diplomacy, including candid and embarrassing assessments of world leaders.

Before Sunday, WikiLeaks had made public nearly 500,000 classified U.S. files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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