Who is your neighbour?
Panamanian Panic!
The recent leak of data (or as the firm claims now, the hack of data) from a leading Panama Law Firm has led to some degree of panic among many of those who would seek to park their money anonymously offshore, whether for legitimate or illegitimate reasons.
The usual cast of princes, potentates and politicians have been, or seem likely to become enmeshed in messy revelations about their use of such entities, as the analysis continues. I can't find any search tools which would allow wider public scrutiny,but I'm sure that must come along sometime soon. For the present, we are reliant on the work of the various journalists on the project who one can understand would be focusing on high profile figures. This data just cries out for a "crowd sourcing" approach to allow the smaller less prominent individuals engaged in corruption, tax evasion and money laundering to be revealed.
One great revelation over the last few days was the ownership of a ￡1.65 m property in London by the former head of the Number Plate Production Authority in Lagos. The gentleman concerned says that he has other sources of income as the linked article describes. But the important point about these revelations is that it allows citizens to ask current and former officials and politicians about the source of wealth behind the creation of such companies and property acquisitions. The UK's own Prime Minister David Cameron has been involved in such clarifications over the past few days. The Icelandic Prime Minister clearly failed to satisfy his electorate.
To the surprise of no one, report over the last day or so, put a number of the big banks at the forefront of providing "assistance" to their clients in creating the vehicles into which these funds are transferred.
Already we see the banks squirming as they claim that all necessary due diligence and "know your client" rules were followed. Even so, we are seeing suggestions that the US authorities may be taking a fresh look at deferred prosecution agreements concluded with some leading banks in recent years.
Location location location!
So what is this stash of offshore cash being used for?
The ever amazing Private Eye Magazine here in the UK, last year put great effort into creating an interactive map of those offshore companies which had bought UK property between 2005 and July 2014. After that date, the UK authorities seemed to have decided to longer furnish Private Eye with this data!
You can check that map by following this link:
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/registry
It's a truly great piece of work and indeed a quick search that I did prior to writing this shows that where I live in London, I am surrounded on four sides by overseas owned properties. Indeed, one of these is particularly interesting because since January of this year, I cannot get anyone in my local authority (from Planning Department to Mayor's Office) to answer any questions I have put to them as to why a proposed development by the overseas company concerned is likely to lead to the extinguishment of a local street without any apparent (as far as I can see) consultation.
The Private Eye project brings together the best of investigative journalism and resources like the OpenMap Project and provides a very useful resource for anyone interested in the UK property market and the use of anonymously owned foreign entities to buy properties in this market.
President at McEachin & Associates Ltd.
8 年Doesn't it bother anybody that this data was stolen? Doesn't it bother anyone that the thief might have been an intelligence agency? Doesn't it bother anyone that data may have been added or altered for the purpose of harming a specific person or country?
Principal - Forensics Advisory at Doane Grant Thornton
8 年Love the crowdsourcing idea Danny - I am sure many of us who work to trace illicit funds and the proceeds of corruption and fraud would love three months off and a few good researchers to dig into this trove. Over the years I have often come across offshore vehicles created by this law firm being used to hide stolen funds.