British connections to the “Panama Papers” and the Mossack Fonseca scandal
Published today are “The Panama Papers”, a global
publication of eleven millions files of 2.6 terabytes of data made up of
emails, documents, letters, property deeds, bank records, contracts and
invoices dating back as far as 1977 leaked to journalists. It allows
investigators and journalists to dig much deeper into the very murky
world of the secretive offshore tax havens sheltering trillions of
dollars and assets of the world’s most rich, famous and powerful.
From what we know, a year ago, an anonymous source contacted a German
news outlet called Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted
internal documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca headquartered
in Panama. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
has also received a copy, investigated and today publishes its initial
findings (HERE).
Mossack Fonseca is considered one of the world’s biggest traders of
offshore secrecy. The company boasts more than 500 employees and
associates operating in more than 40 offices around the world. Needless
to say that includes London, Jersey, Isle of Man, Gibraltar, British
Virgin Isles and British Anguilla. It’s annual billing exceeds
£40million.
There are 210,000 companies, foundations and trusts located in 21
offshore jurisdictions contained in the enormous stash of information in
the leak along with the details connecting the ill gotten gains of
bribery, corruption, weapons and drug dealing along with all manner of
crimes perpetrated by individuals from tin-pot dictators to world
leaders.
Mossack Fonseca worked with more than 14,000 banks, law firms,
company incorporators and other middlemen to set up companies,
foundations and trusts for its customers. Britain, one of the biggest
money laundering tax havens in the world can now boast 1,900
intermediaries, the second highest number of anywhere in the world
connected to the law firm and its clients.
Britain’s HSBC (Monaco and Switzerland) and Queen’s bank Coutts &
Co (Jersey) make it to the top ten banking organisations listed as
having the most offshore companies for clients connected to Mossack
Fonseca.
The British Overseas Territory of the British Virgin Isles
(BVI) has by far the largest number of offshore companies listed. Of the
210,000 listed worldwide, over 110,00 are located there. The BVI
operates outside of the European Union and is not subject to their
regulations.
