{"id":6036,"date":"2013-04-05T12:06:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T10:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=6036"},"modified":"2013-04-05T12:11:06","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T10:11:06","slug":"icij-secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/icij-secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"ICIJ Secret Files Expose Offshore\u2019s Global Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

ICIJ<\/a> Secret Files Expose Offshore\u2019s Global Impact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Government officials and their families and associates in Azerbaijan, Russia, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, Mongolia and other countries have embraced the use of covert companies and bank accounts.<\/p>\n

The mega-rich use complex offshore structures to own mansions, yachts, art master-pieces and other assets, gaining tax advantages and anonymity not available to average people.<\/p>\n

Many of the world\u2019s top\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ponzi schemers and other large-scale fraudsters routinely use offshore havens to pull off their shell games and move their ill-gotten gains…ICIF_Nominee_Trick_25.11.12<\/a><\/strong>\"How<\/a>ICIJ – How the nominee trick works<\/b><\/p>\n

A nominee director is per se not illegal and can sometimes be useful, for example in preparing “off-the-shelf” ready-made companies.<\/p>\n

But the legal conjuring trick behind the nominee systems opens the way to abuses such as using a \u201cshell\u201d companies for tax evasion, fraud, money laundering and other crimes.<\/p>\n

For the trick with nominee directors to work depends on three pieces of paper:<\/p>\n