Center for Public Integrity

ICIJ Releases Offshore Leaks Database Revealing Names Behind Secret Companies, Trusts

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ICIJ June 14 2013 (Thanks, C.R.)

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Bernard Madoff

ICIJ Releases Offshore Leaks Database to Public [~6 min. video]

When Bernard Madoff built his $65 billion house of cards; when food distributors passed off horsemeat as beef lasagna in Europe; and when Apple, Google and other American companies set up structures to channel their profits through Ireland — they all used tax havens.

They bought secrecy, minimal or zero taxes and legal insulation, the distinctive products that tax havens market and that allow companies to operate in a fiscal and regulatory vacuum. Using the offshore economy is akin to acquiring your own island where the rules that most citizens follow don’t apply.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalistspublishes today a database that, for the first time in history, will help begin to strip away this secrecy across 10 offshore jurisdictions.

The Offshore Leaks Database allows users to search through more than 100,000 secret companies, trusts and funds created in offshore locales such as the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands and Singapore. The Offshore Leaks web app, developed by La Nación newspaper in Costa Rica for ICIJ, displays graphic visualizations of offshore entities and the networks around them, including, when possible, the company’s true owners.

Attacking Apathy

The data are part of a cache of 2.5 million leaked offshore files ICIJ analyzed with 112 journalists in 58 countries. Since April, stories based on the data — the largest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization — have been published by more than 40 media organizations worldwide, including The Guardian in the U.K., Le Monde in France, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Germany,The Washington Post and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

ICIJ’s investigation — called Offshore Leaks by the Twittersphere and the public —has shaken the political and economic establishments from South Korea to Canada, sparking investigations, resignations and a renewed sense of urgency among world leaders that this is the time to rein in offshore abuses .

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Corruption, America-Style

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by Tom Engelhardt | Common Dreams
November 2 2011

In the U.S., corruption is seldom “corruption.”  Take as an example our president, who has been utterly clear: he will not take money for his electoral campaign from lobbyists.  Only problem: according to the New York Times, 15 of his top “bundlers,” who give their own money and solicit that of others — none registered as federal lobbyists — are “involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies,” and they are raising millions for him.  They also have access to the White House on policy matters.  According to a June report from the Center for Public Integrity, “President Obama granted plum jobs and appointments to almost 200 people who raised large sums for his [2008] presidential campaign, and his top fundraisers have won millions of dollars in federal contracts.”

The president’s spokespeople insist, of course, that he’s kept to his promise, as defined by the labyrinthine lobbying legislation written by a Congress filled with future lobbyists.  And keep in mind that Obama looks like Little Mary Sunshine compared to the field of Republican presidential candidates who seem determined to campaign cheek to jowl with as many lobbyists as they can corral.  More than 100 federal lobbyists have already contributed to Mitt Romney’s campaign, while Rick Perry has evidently risen to candidate status on the shoulders of Mike Toomey, a former gubernatorial chief of staff, friend, and money-raising lobbyist whose clients “have won $2 billion in [Texas] state government contracts since 2008.”  And that’s just the tip of the top of the iceberg.

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