Panama Papers: The Role Of Western Secrecy Jurisdictions In Looting Africa - TruePublica

Panama Papers: The Role Of Western Secrecy Jurisdictions In Looting Africa - TruePublica

 

This blog comes from Johannesburg, South Africa, where investigative journalists from 28 countries are sharing their work at the African Investigative Journalism Conference. One session looked at stories dug out from the Panama Papers
leak from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca and investigations which
have revealed a colourful mix of characters involved in looting Africa.

The stories uncovered include a mafia lawyer linked to the film The French Connection, an absentee landowning Russian oligarch, plus, of course, a former politician, and a “millionaire receptionist” who denies knowledge of having owned nine offshore companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.

The common factor in all these stories is the role of offshore
secrecy jurisdictions populated by western banks, western lawyers,
western accounting firms, and protected by leading western nations like
the United Kingdom, which even as I write is vigorously trying to protect its Crown Dependencies from attempts to crack down on offshore secrecy.

Unsurprisingly the British Virgin Islands – a British overseas territory – feature heavily, as does Switzerland.