Investigative journalism on money laundering – with names!

The editor of an Indian TV station contacted PCU to say: “Truly great journalism released in April but sadly under-reported by the media in all countries. Please share widely!!”

He refers to news of the publication of the secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists naming banks, dictators, businessmen, celebrities, politicians and monarchs from 170 countries, including India, the US, Malaysia, the UK, Russia, France, Australia etc. who use havens like Singapore, British Virgin Islands, Switzerland, Cook Islands etc. to hide and launder their money.

Dozens of journalists sifted through millions of leaked records and thousands of names to produce ICIJ’s investigation into offshore secrecy ­

A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over. It publishes the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore havens.

The vast flow of offshore money — legal and illegal, personal and corporate — deprives the ‘home’ economies of revenue and impacts on other countries. The Greek fiscal disaster is said to have been exacerbated by offshore tax cheating and local banks’ assets Cyprus, inflated by waves of cash from Russia, are now in ‘meltdown’.

ICIJ’s 15-month investigation found that, alongside perfectly legal transactions, the secrecy and lax oversight offered by the offshore world allows fraud, tax dodging and political corruption to thrive. Studies have estimated that cross-border flows of global proceeds of financial crimes total between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion a year. See video here.

Jeffrey Sachs comments in the Financial Times A-List:

“Week after week, Americans and Europeans worn down by budget austerity have learnt about the secret accounts of their politicians, tax evasion by leading companies and hot money destabilising the world economy. The darker truth is that these havens are not gaps in the world’s financial system; they are the system . . .

“Jérôme Cahuzac has resigned in disgrace from his position as budget minister following the revelation that he held a secret account in Switzerland. He has since been charged with tax fraud. Spain’s ruling party has been making payments from secret Swiss accounts for years. One senior Greek politician has been sentenced to jail for falsifying financial declarations. Many more revelations will come, especially now that investigative journalists have their hands on the records of hundreds of thousands of offshore accounts.

“Groups such as Apple, Google and Starbucks have been shown in recent months to have used outlandish accounting gimmicks to shelter their profits. These include Google’s claim, approved by the US Internal Revenue Service, that its intellectual capital resides in Bermuda. There are thousands more like them working with the tax authorities to keep their money out of reach. Banks such as HSBC and UBS have been caught in the money laundering that facilitates this process”.

Recent estimates by the Tax Justice Network suggest that deposits are in the range of $21tn. The havens serve countless purposes:

• They support massive tax evasion.
• They underpin a global system of bribery to corrupt officials.
• They service the accounts of drug runners, arms traders and terrorist groups.
• They create veils of secrecy through shell companies, which allow tax evasion, land grabs and environmental destruction.

The prime movers of the world’s tax havens are the US, Switzerland and the UK. Indeed, many of the leading havens, including the British Virgin Islands, Cayman and Bermuda, are British Overseas Territories.

Professor Sachs ends by asking if these abuses will be addressed at the summits of the G8 leading nations in June and the G20 in September.

Further reading