Nicky Hager and four other internationally acclaimed investigative journalists have today published a comprehensive body of work that unpicks the offshore money maze.
The investigation, which I understand has consumed around 12 months of investigative work, unearths a labyrinth of covert companies, bank accounts, blind trusts and assets designed as depositories where the rich, the powerful, the famous, and corrupt can hide away their profits.
The investigation presents how some of the world’s top banks have provided a shelter for money launderers.
The work was published today on the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists site www.icij.org.
It outs a significant number of leaders, politicians, business people from an array of countries including Fiji, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia (where Owners of corporations registered in “British Virgin Islands include top managers of Russian state-controlled giants”), France, Canada, USA, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia (a Nicky Hager report that unearths how the “Deputy speaker of Mongolia’s Parliament admits he had $1 million Swiss account..”), South Africa/Zimbabwe, and states:
“Many of the world’s top’s banks – including UBS, Clariden and Deutsche Bank – have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways.
“A well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives has helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.”
The investigation is (as would be expected) a thorough in-depth account of where the money comes from and what it is used for. The Full Coverage section delves deep into a dangerous world of tax havens and crooks, into Ponzi schemes and hideaways where money is laundered. It reveals how even a Canadian senator’s husband has been found to have shifted money into offshore tax havens. And it unearths how the Son-in-law of Burma’s former dictator Ne Win and his family had accumulated massive wealth through forestry and fisheries industries, and how the son in law is a shareholder in companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The team of investigative journalists have revealed how a “number of so-called nominee directors of companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) have connections to military or intelligence activities…” And also “Companies making use of offshore secrecy include firms that supplied surveillance software used by repressive regimes. (See: Nominee Directors Linked To Intelligence Military.)
The work also details how Post Soviet billionaires have invaded the UK, via the British Virgin Islands.
And the investigation alleges that Fiji’s Fred Marafono was a former British SAS officer who “was involved in security work and diamond mining during the Sierra Leone civil war.” The report states Marafono had offshore business as a “Director of Hinterland Mining Brokers Limited (1997-2000) in the Cook Islands.” It notes that Marafono passed away on March 27, 2013; and that “earlier attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful”.
Also check out how Australia was also investigated, and where journalist Gerard Ryle’s investigation Inside the shell: Drugs, arms and tax scams alleges how “Arms deals between North Korea and Iran, money-laundering by Mexican drug lords, and Russia’s largest tax fraud: the common element is a 68-year-old Queensland businessman, Geoffrey Taylor”.
The investigation also presents graphs that data-mine the volumes of information.
See Interactive: Gunter Sachs’s Offshore Network; and Interactive: Stash Your Cash; and We Reveal Who’s Buying Up In Britain; also a video: How To Dodge Tax.
Did they track down the amount, to the nearest million say, that David Shearer has in his New York account?
Needn’t be a dick all your life Alwyn. Lets put some time in and read the full report. Hagar has a damn good record so far on spys, Echelon, NZ military and Nats Hollowmen.
Finance capital just loves that electronic transfer of funds overnight.
So what? Isn’t this the journalistic equivalent of stating the Pope is Catholic and Bears defecate in the woods?
It is a standard mantra of Neo-liberal economics that people use legitimate, (and sometimes illegitimate) means to avoid paying tax.
If this is a call for some sort of international tax reform then good luck trying to get that accepted.
Since when was Shearer money laundering tax dodging?
Get real!
Does anybody know what our Banskster Exec’s and their political cronies blood pressures are reading right now ? Is there an instrument that measures high enough ? Did Sir Michael Fay live in Switzerland ? Doesn’t he have around $790 mil ? And an island ? He and his best bud Dave own an Island in Mercury Bay do they not ? Do they not rent out two fancy ‘ cribs ‘ there for 20 k a night each ? Didn’t Sir Mick live in Switzerland ? Wasn’t the BNZ implicated in tax evasion within the Cook Islands ? Didn’t WInston Peters go in there , into a commission of inquiry like a toothless , neutered , arthritic , pitbull terrier , all yap and no bite ? Shouldn’t New Zealand have a few more dollars in the biscuit tin ? Especially since our country is filthy rich in resources , person power and has an excellent and established infrastructure until it was sold to , you guessed it ? Sir Michael Fay and his bro’s ? Best of all … there’s only four million of us ? On Two main islands … ? The size of the UK ? Excluding Ireland ? Uhh ? Umm ? Didn’t we go from third highest standard of living back in the 1970’s to about three from the bottom as Sir Rob Muldoon opened his numbered Swiss Bank Account ? Just where is David Richwhite ? Sir Douglas Meyers ? Sir Roger Douglas ? Sir Keith Holyoak ? OK . Sir Keith’s dead , but where is he ? How come us Kiwis have to borrow money to survive to become one of the most leveraged economies of the OECD’s when virtually everything we produce / manufacture is exported ? Ummm ? Why is LPG not 10c a tonne ? Why can I not buy fish that’s not under armed guard at the supermarket ? Or Cheeses ? I like Cheeses but since I’m not a lawyer or a real estate agent or a banker I can’t afford the cheeses that comes from the cows that shit in my water ? Sorry , their water ? Sorry , to those who now own our water who live half way around the world ? Sorry ? But really , they don’t own the water , who can as John Key rightly points out . But some lawyer would argue that they more own the gravity that attracts the water to it ? And the fruits ? I like the fruits ? Who doesn’t like the fruits ? Who’s idea was it to create the Apple and Pear Marketing Board ? I remember when it became illegal for a grower to sell first grade fruit at their own road side stalls ? Do I remember that ? I dunno ? I do remember Watties exporting first grade fruits to Australia to sell cheaper than we Kiwis could buy it for here ? Do I remember that ? I dunno ? Was just askin’ .
Grow your finger nails Sir This or That . You’ll need them to claw at your nervous rashes . Hear that scratching at your kitchen door ? That’s the Truth ! No question ? there .
To all you people who live in hopeless fear , in a cold house , in poor health and with a hungry little kid or more . It’s not your fault . It’s not your fault .
I like this little thing , as part of a bigger thing by William Blake .
The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags
Are toadstools on the miser’s bags.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
I certainly remembering seeing kiwifruit and apples (from NZ) in both US and Netherlands supermarkets, and the quality was a hell of a lot better than the “seconds” they foist on the NZ consumer here for MORE money!
Just what should we do with politicians, bankers, consultants, entrepreneurs and the other looters, thieves and lying scoundrels who have enriched themselves at everyone’ else’s expense?
15 years hard labour depaving (breaking up concrete and tar seal and restoring the land) seems to me to be a suitable sentence.
Reads suspiciously like what leftist revolutionaries attempt to do with those people they deem counter-revolutionaries when they take over a country. Normally they get sent to ‘re-education’ camps where they are forced to work for the ‘good’ of the people. Nice to see that attitude alive and well in some here.
The regime of Augusto Pinochet, neoliberal proponents, never resorted to inhumane measures in implementing their system?
Why with this government we are presented with future working prisons? All for the common good by “rehabilitating” criminals, regardless of the reality of high unemployment, a poor job market, cut or denied social security and limited opportunities for further education or training – perfect conditions for creating “criminals”.
As attractive as it may seem, there is no need to resort to inhumanity in distributing justice. The establishment of a fairer, accountable system with a social and environmental conscience will be torture enough for the “few with the most” – their malevolent psyche will be their torturer. We are better than to resort to their inhumanity.
Could always take a leaf out of Westminster’s book, and invoke anti-terrorism legislation to freeze the guilty parties’ assets like what was done with Iceland’s toxic banking system.
Put them in the Stockades, March them Down the Streets while we Pelt poor grade Fruit & Vege’s at Them I say !!
[…] enterprises in Australia and NZ have also been part of the network. See for instance links in Selwyn Manning’s Daily Blog post on the project. One of the links goes to an ICIJ’s article on ‘Inside the shell: […]
[…] In Nicky Hager And International Team Of Journalists Expose Global Money Laundering Network, Selwyn Manning reports on an incredible international […]
[…] “Offshore Leaks“, a recent report about international money laundering. This is what The Daily Blog had to say about the […]
Comments are closed.