Paradise Papers: Glencore and the Bin Laden family jet | afr.com
A new investigative report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners broke on Sunday. (ICIJ is the investigative journalist consortium that brought us last year's Panama Papers investigation, for which they won a Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting.)
A trove of 13.4 million records exposes ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the offshore interests of the queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.
The leaked documents, dubbed the Paradise Papers, show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers...
...The new files shine a light on a different cast of underexplored island havens, including some with cleaner reputations and higher price tags, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda....
- BBC, Paradise Papers
- Forbes, Paradise Papers Expose Rich And Famous Using Tax Havens
- New York Times, After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits
- New York Times, Commerce Secretary's Offshore Ties to Putin 'Cronies'
- New York Times, Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire's Twitter and Facebook Investments
- New York Times, Paradise Papers Shine Light on Where the Elite Hide Their Money
I also posted my initial reactions on Surly Subgroup: Some Initial Thoughts on the Paradise Papers Leak
This was at Least in Part a Cyber Hack. Most of the news coverage I’m seeing is focused on the content on the leak, but it’s worth noting that at least with respect to Appleby, this new leak was in part a result of a cyberattack on Appleby that happened last year. I haven’t seen anything to suggest that this was a data theft by an insider (e.g., employee) turned whistleblower. In its response to the leak, Appleby defended itself and noted the challenges of cyber-crime for individuals and businesses.
The Appleby Hack Occurred in 2016. The public data release only happened on November 5, 2017. This means that someone (the hacker(s) or the journalists) has had the data for at least 10 months before releasing it to the public. This is in line with some previous leaks, where ICIJ and other media partners collaborated to analyze, process, and frame the leaked data before finally releasing partial information on the ICIJ website....
The
Consortium of Investigative Journalists strikes again
The Guardian underscores
an unceasing reality of 21st century life: "Most people do
not understand the complexities of offshore tax. They have no need to — because
they do not have enough money to consider the schemes and arrangements that are
on offer in tax havens. The 'ordinary' world and the 'offshore' world
have coexisted for decades, separated by the secrecy that remains one of the
important attractions of the sector."
For the sixth time in
five years, The Guardian is now part of a media army worldwide that's shedding
light on the secrecy, this time via "The Paradise Papers." It follows
"The Panama Papers" from last year. No surprise, it was the No. 1
trending item worldwide on Twitter for much of the day. The whole project is
again led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,
this time involving 13.4 million records and 380 journalists from 96 news
organizations working on six continents in 30 languages.
Here's a
synopsis and all the relevant links via Quartz.
It got big play
in many places, ranging from splashy play (you
can find Germany and English versions after clicking) in Suddeutsche Zeitung,
the German paper that was the central recipient of the leaks of both the Panama
Papers and the new Paradise Papers), to an hour-long Vice HBO special
today at 7 p.m. And, no surprise, The
New York Times.
The consortium's own
summary heralds how the effort "exposes ties between Russia and U.S.
President Donald Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary, the
secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau and the offshore interests of the queen of England and
more than 120 politicians around the world."
"The leaked
documents ... show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with
the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate
giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes
through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers."
"One offshore
web leads to Trump’s commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur
Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more
than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned
by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin."
But though the Ross
connection led The Times story, and much American coverage, there are names far
better known worldwide who surfaced in the investigation of offshore funds,
including Queen Elizabeth, Madonna and Bono.
Here's a decent Guardian
summary of the reaction; a BBC tale of a former prominent British
Conservative Party official running
to hide in the john when confronted by a reporter; and how the business
manager of the late INXS singer Michael Hutchence set
up a company in the tax haven of Mauritius to exploit his image and records.
Mike Hudson, senior editor for the consortium, shed light on the
substance and methods of the latest project during halftime of an epic (not)
soccer game I was attending between teams of 8-year-olds (though it did
have an array of rather vocal parents from around the globe).
How does this
flow from your last major effort on tax havens?
This is the sixth
"offshore leak" project that we have released since 2013 —
following Offshore Leaks, China Leaks, Luxembourg Leaks, Swiss Leaks and Panama
Papers. So ICIJ and our partners have established ourselves as the journalistic
experts on investigating giant leaks of records about offshore bank accounts,
shell companies, trusts, etc.
This project seemed
like a natural next-place-to-go from the Panama Papers, because the leaks
differed in that they were more global — from more than 20 offshore
jurisdictions. More than half of the documents (almost 7 million out of the
13.4 million total) came from a [Bermuda] law firm, Appleby Global, that is a
more mainstream, more prestigious firm than the law firm that was the source of
the Panama Papers.
Other factors that
helped make the new project something that advanced us beyond what we learned
from the previous project:
— The new trove of
documents had lots of details about complex tax gyrations involving
multinational companies (Apple, Uber, Nike etc.), which were largely absent
from the Panama Papers.
— There were a lot
more Americans in these new documents than in the Panama Papers.
Were there any key leaks like the last time when, if I recall, a German paper found itself in possession of a treasure trove of leaked data?
Were there any key leaks like the last time when, if I recall, a German paper found itself in possession of a treasure trove of leaked data?
Our long-time
partner, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, got the big leak that produced
the Panama Papers effort. SZ also got the series of leaks that make up the new
Paradise Papers documents.
For an
American audience, what are the most relevant facts or individuals involved?
Whom might they know?
At least 31,000 of
the individual and corporate clients included in Appleby’s records are U.S.
citizens or have U.S. addresses, more than from any other country. Appleby also
counted clients from the United Kingdom, China and Canada among its biggest
sources of business. There are a number of
Trump-related folks in the data — big donors, a couple of cabinet members
and other appointees. Also of interest is
our story about the chief fundraiser for a politician of a decidedly
different cast than Trump: Justin Trudeau.
Offshore use isn't
limited by political ideology. Another lesson I take away from this
investigation is that offshore isn't just a collection of tiny island havens —
it's a global system that relies on not just out-of-the-way financial secrecy
jurisdictions but also major banks, onshore law firms and accounting firms who
play a crucial role in the shadow economy.
Expand on the
involvement of journalists worldwide.
More than 380
journalists from 96 news organizations working in 67 countries on six
continents in 30 languages. The New York Times was our U.S. partner (this is
the first time the NYT has worked with us from the beginning to end on a
project. We brought them into the Panama Papers investigation a few weeks AFTER
the first wave of stories came out in April 2016. For the Paradise Papers, the
NYT was there from the start, including having folks at a big organizing
meeting in Munich early this year — a few months into the project — that
brought together more than 100 journalists from around the world.)
What's really
illegal? Or what would you guys argue is most debatable? What's the difference
here between lawful, if aggressive skirting of paying taxes and illegality?
Owning an offshore
bank account or an offshore company isn't necessarily illegal. People often use
offshore entities in ways that are entirely legal and even innocuous. But
creating shell companies that often are difficult, or impossible, to trace back
to their owners provides refuge and deniability for money launderers, drug
traffickers, kleptocrats and others who want to operate in the shadows. Big
companies often use byzantine offshore tax-avoidance structures that drain
billions from national treasuries. These structures are usually legal — at
least until governments get around to closing loopholes and declaring certain
structures illegal. (Of course the companies and their quick-witted advisers
are almost always able to find new loopholes and new structures that do the
trick for them.)
Finally, who
got the final say on the final edit of the latest batch of stories? How the
hell did that work?
Each media partner
maintains independence in terms of what they publish or broadcast. We all agree
to share information and agree to all come out with our stories at the same
time. But each news organization — including ICIJ — chooses, writes and edits
stories in the way that best serves its own audience.
And then
there's Twitter and Facebook ...
As Recode notes,
"Facebook and Twitter received major investments from a firm with ties to
Kremlin-owned corporations."
"The documents
reveal for the first time that Kremlin-owned corporations VTB Bank and Gazprom
helped fund DST Global’s investment in Facebook and Twitter. DST Global, helmed
by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, received $191 million from
VTB Bank — part of which was used to obtain a large stake in Twitter, ICIJ
reported."
"For its
investment in Facebook, DST Global partnered with an offshore company heavily
funded by Russian-owned energy corporation, Gazprom."
* * *
The Texas
church shooting
There were so many
correspondents in Sutherland Springs, Texas, including CNN "New Day"
co-host Chris Cuomo, that Fox reporter Todd Piro said
in the morning dark, "The only sounds you hear are other reporters on the
scene, and generators."
There were also the
in-house studio sounds back in New York of conservatives already getting defensive
on the guns issue. It included bashing President Obama for suggesting the need
to reduce "the weaponry in our midst." In other words, said
"Fox and Friends" co-host Steve Doocy, "gun
control." Boo-hoo, they don't like that since, of course, it's got to be a
"mental health issue," as Trump said in Japan
Cuomo and CNN put up
a simple graphic: "Las Vegas, 58 Killed; New York City, 8
Killed; Texas Church: 26 Killed." And, it was on a well-practiced
post-tragedy auto-pilot as it dragged in relatives and friends of victims to
ask what they were going through. No rest for the weary and shocked.
On "Morning
Joe," Joe Scarborough said "We've got to
stop as members of the media revealing the names of these mass shooters. I want
to know their background, why they do it but it makes no sense in this
era of copy-cat mass shootings for the media to
give somebody's name ... Does the cable media culture, talk radio culture,
online culture, don't they just create more mass shooters in the future?"
There's not a vast academic
literature on the point but what there is doesn't necessarily convince that
censorship is the way to go, as opposed to judicious editing. As Zeynep
Tufekci, a University of North Carolina psychologist and New York
Times columnist, put
it to New York magazine after the Las Vegas shootings: "It means
not putting the killer’s face on loop. It means minimizing or not using the
killers’ names, as I have done here. It means not airing snuff films, or making
them easily accessible on popular sites. It means holding back reporting of
details such as the type of gun, ammunition, angle of attack and the protective
gear the killer might have worn. Such detailed reporting can give the next
killer a concrete road map."
Larry David's
SNL concentration camp jokes
There were many who
were not happy campers with host David's Holocaust jokes on "Saturday
Night Live," as Variety
made clear. And they also weren't very funny. The Washington Post
wondered whether it was bad taste or bad comedy. It was both
CNBC on the
NFL's bigger problem
Here's a good CNBC
piece on the status of science in figuring out and dealing with a problem a lot
more onerous to the NFL than bad ratings, namely brain
injuries.
Michael Lewis on his modus operandi
Michael Lewis on his modus operandi
C-Span's Steve
Scully did a fine three-hour interview with Michael
Lewis, who maintains that aspiring journalists should use his modus
operandi as a road map, other than making sure to do something beyond
journalism. In his case, it was two and a half years on Wall
Street. "That attached engines to my ambition, to have that actual experience
to write about."
And what topic has
him jazzed right now? Lewis (who doesn't do social media) tells Scully it
is "righting the federal government," in light of voluminous
volumes of briefing books the Obama administration passed along to its
successors that have apparently not generally been heeded. He did a good
piece in September Vanity Fair on the Energy Department. Now comes a Vanity
Fair opus
on the Department of Agriculture. There's more to come, he says.
And, yes, that's not
a mistake. It's a thoroughly enjoyable three hours. It includes his
talking baseball, football, Nobel Prize economics, high frequency stock trading
and about what author he'd love to write about him, though he does think
he'd be a boring subject (as he believes is the case with most journalists).
But, come to think of it, he says, maybe a journalist with the ability to
entertain, namely the late George Plimpton.
Joan Didion
A terrific Joan
Didion biography on Netflix, "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not
Hold," is ultimately about love and grief but it should also be a spur for
viewers not really familiar with some of her work to check out her great
journalism. It's journalism with the novelist's eye, including on the ugly war
in El Salvador and on American politics, including Dick Cheney. Check it
out.
On the road
with the president
From Tokyo, pool
reporter Mike Bender of The Wall Street Journal was on duty
when Trump went to dinner: "For the foodies out there: dinner
tonight included Hokkaido scallop & white truffle salad; sautéed shizuoka’s
ise ebi bisque; tajima beef steak, according to a Japanese
official."
Donna
Brazile, petty pundit
For sure, The
Washington Post clarification
is embarrassing amid its reporting of political operative-pundit Donna
Brazile's new book bashing (in part) the Hillary Clinton
campaign. "Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the
process that Donna Brazile considered initiating to have Hillary Clinton
replaced as the Democratic presidential nominee. As interim chair of the
Democratic National Committee, Brazile was not empowered to replace her
unilaterally. Reactions from former Clinton campaign officials have also been
added."
That said, the
ultimate embarrassment is largely possessed by Brazile. The un-rebutted
excerpts out so far are evidence of petty and angry score-settling with Clinton
and of a wayward self-image as victim. Brazile, whose predictable
articulation of the liberal Democratic establishment has made her a longtime TV
pundit fixture, might find it a bit difficult to land another such gig, and
certainly one in Democratic politics.
Even if sales are
robust, including among Clinton-hating Republicans, this might just be a tale
of professional self-immolation — unless, of course, some cable network (Fox?)
throws her a lifeline.
The decline
of alternative weeklies
As a former
alternative weekly publisher, I thought I knew a bit about the species' rise
and fall. Nope, not close. Check out "The
Death of the Alt-Weekly As Told By An Industry Lifer" in libertarian
Reason. It's a long, detailed and provocative (namely harsh) saga by Gustavo
Arellano, who split last month as editor of OC Weekly, not long after
the Village Voice published its final print edition. The death of the Voice
print version fits with his general thrust.
"More damning
was the stream of hosannas put forth by alt-week alumni about the supposed
glory days — so many, that the Columbia Journalism Review ridiculed such
nostalgia as 'hoary remembrances.'"
"Such cynicism
was right. The fact is, alt-weeklies long ago condemned themselves to a slow,
pitiful death. They had an amazing advantage to conquer the digital age,
because they were historically younger, ostensibly hipper, and seemingly more
open to evolve than the media dinosaurs they so gleefully mocked. Their legacy
defines a modern-day media landscape dominated by Vice, Buzzfeed, podcasts,
Instagrammers, and other outlets that inherited the alt-weekly emphasis on
point of view, individualism, and creating a self-contained universe for
consumers."
"But the alts
blew it. They're even more imperiled now than the dailies, which can at least
count on big-ticket advertisers too afraid to buy space in papers that drop
f-bombs. Alt-weeklies find themselves in a position much like the baby boomers
who launched most of them: stuck in the past, oblivious to the present, and
increasingly obsolete."
Amid the
Texas tragedy
The San Antonio
Express-News did a solid job in
covering Sunday's church tragedy. But somebody might have thought to drop a
bunch of adjacent tales on its website. They included: "Mexican
revolutionaries honored in San Antonio," "Annual haute cuisine gala
at the Witte got S.A. dancing." "Diwali festival delights downtown
with parade, fireworks," "Rappers and pop stars photographed with the
Spurs" and "Wurstfest has begun — here's the festival over the
years."
Trump's
latest official photographic portrait
In PetaPixel, Florida
photographer Doug Jackson analyzes (in
very intimate professional detail) the recently released second Trump official
portrait.
"I would agree
that Trump’s new portrait is an improvement upon the one previously
distributed. But as a photographer and someone involved with policy work, my
take is that President Trump’s newly released official portrait is terrible
(especially when viewed next to Pence’s). And most curious about both of
Trump’s portraits is this intentional, hard light source placed below the
subject (sinister lighting technique.) This just strikes me as odd. I cannot
help but wonder if Trump himself is insisting that he be photographed this way?"