New documents provide vast quantity of data on secrecy jurisdiction industry
PART OF THE BIGGEST data leak in the history of journalism has been made available, identifying the scale of the secrecy jurisdiction industry in Scotland and the UK.
The ‘Panama Papers’ documents – which revealed how rich and powerful financial and legal organisations support the plundering of global wealth – have been broken down by national jurisdiction and company, before being made available by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Almost 5,000 total UK addresses were linked to the documents – with thousands more linked to UK tax havens like the British Virgin Islands.
The international database – which include company names, addresses, and individuals, but not financial transactions – is searchable by the public on the ICIJ website .
Investigative group The Ferret has broken down the address data into map form – revealing the scale of secrecy jurisdiction linked addresses in the UK alone.
The Ferret is urging the public to investigate the information – given the number of names and addresses are on a scale that even professional news teams will struggle to fully comprehend.
The 73 Scottish address have also been published on ‘ GitHub ‘ databases.
Through searching on the ICIJ site, each address can be matched with an ‘officer’ (individual linked) and the appropriate offshore corporation.
Examples of offshore companies linked to Scottish addresses so far include: Win Capture Limited, Seychelles (address in Milngavie), Kaymar Holdings Limited, British Virgin Islands (address in Glasgow), Danamo Group Limited, Nevada (Kilmacolm), Circle Finance Cor, British Virgin Islands (address in Glasgow).
While using a secrecy jurisdiction for business dealings is not necessarily illegal, the practice was brought into disrepute by the Panama Papers scandal.
Eleven million leaked documents from legal-financial firm Mossack Fonseca exposed 500 banks, dozens of world leaders, and other giant corporations for being complicit in the secrecy industry – which blocks transparency over the hoarding of wealth and dodgy business dealings.
Over half of the 215,000 firms identified in the leaks are based in UK administered tax havens – the largest being the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
The scandal engulfed prime minister David Cameron , who eventually had to admit that he profited from his father’s tax haven firm. HSBC and the Queen’s bank Coutts and Co. were also implicated .
60,000 acres of land in Scotland was also found to be registered in the Panama tax haven.
Campaign group Rise Scotland linked six of the country’s ten billionaires to tax havens , which have been targeted for increasing the global wealth gap.
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Picture courtesy Enough Food If