Pandora Papers: Panama Papers Part 2

[pacman 7212]

5 years after the "Panama Papers" were released, Panama fears repercussions of newest release.

https://news.yahoo.com/panama-fears-could-hit-icij-055731841.html

 

2016 data set

https://panamapapers.org/

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by pacman

[pacman 7212]

 

 

[52-80 18962]

Politicians who campaign on anti-corruption platform actually have shelters hiding millions of dollars of unaccounted/unexplained assets….linked in time to significant legislative events in which theyve had an influence….who wouldve thunk it!

Edited October 4, 2021 by 52-80

[Neonmoon 38126]

It’s almost if allowing corporations to donate to politicians was a bad idea 

[Biff Tannen 44917]

58 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

It’s almost if allowing corporations to donate to politicians was a bad idea 

But they are people. Because that makes total sense. 

[washparkhorn 9894]

As citizens, they certainly have prospered with their ability to pass the laws they write. 

[washparkhorn 9894]

Of course Tony Blair is on the list. 

[atomheartbevo 88750]

Where the fuck am I supposed to register my foundation now?

[Wally Fairway 5465]

I remember thinking, when the first Panama Papers were released, that people were going to go to lose their job, political resignations and criminal convictions.
Man was I wrong; I now expect nothing of substance to happen with PPP² being released.

[52-80 18962]

 

[pacman 7212]

7 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

I remember thinking, when the first Panama Papers were released, that people were going to go to lose their job, political resignations and criminal convictions.
Man was I wrong; I now expect nothing of substance to happen with PPP² being released.

Agree sadly but I would be satisfied with a universal agreement that complex tax systems are ridiculous and are to be abolished.

[Guest]

On 10/4/2021 at 2:13 PM, Wally Fairway said:

I remember thinking, when the first Panama Papers were released, that people were going to go to lose their job, political resignations and criminal convictions.
Man was I wrong; I now expect nothing of substance to happen with PPP² being released.

Yep. This thread has 10 responses. Urban Meyer has 10 pages. 

I don't blame people. Our lizard brains just can't really unpack this sort of stuff with the emotional response that we get from more tawdry gossip. It just doesn't fire people up as much. It's too big/complex to quickly understand.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23245]

We are so fucked

[Brisketexan 103143]

On 10/3/2021 at 7:55 PM, 52-80 said:

Politicians who campaign on anti-corruption platform actually have shelters hiding millions of dollars of unaccounted/unexplained assets….linked in time to significant legislative events in which theyve had an influence….who wouldve thunk it!

This.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Rules for thee, not for me.

[Captainant 26861]

1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Yep. This thread has 10 responses. Urban Meyer has 10 pages. 

I don't blame people. Our lizard brains just can't really unpack this sort of stuff with the emotional response that we get from more tawdry gossip. It just doesn't fire people up as much. It's too big/complex to quickly understand.

Well and if we talk about any issues substantively the discussion will invariably veer into the realm of politics - which is something many posters profess to want to avoid at all costs

[Fudge Nuggets 18825]

I'm sure as many earth-shattering repercussions will come out of this round as the first round.

[SimonBolivar 10648]

Gilded Age 2.0       

[Captainant 26861]

16 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Gilded Age 2.0       

What's that? The sound of history rhyming with current events? Ah well, nevertheless. It all worked out ok in the end last time

[Brisketexan 103143]

9 minutes ago, Captainant said:

What's that? The sound of history rhyming with current events? Ah well, nevertheless. It all worked out ok in the end last time

This.  The maddening part of all of this is that we literally have written scripts for how all this shit goes, and how it ends.  And when we point it out, we're called chicken little and shit....even though we're hitting every fucking milestone along the way.

[bolverk 28885]

Found a fairly non-political, surface-level article that everyone can rally around so we steer clear of any introspection.

Let's blame South Dakota!

The United States of Dirty Money
How landlocked South Dakota became one of the world’s hottest destinations for offshore funds.

Over the weekend, a consortium of journalists dropped the latest jaw-dropper of an investigation into the sordid, metastasizing world of offshore finance. Dubbed the “Pandora Papers”—following 2016’s Panama Papers and 2017’s Paradise Papers—the documents revealed a litany of now-familiar offshore-banking and tax-sheltering shenanigans, including the Jordanian king’s nine-figure real-estate purchases, the Azerbaijani dictator’s British investments, and the spiderweb of finance linked to the Kremlin, all built on illicit or ill-gotten gains and roped behind networks of financial opacity.

The Pandora Papers are the biggest batch of revelations to date, including details from nearly 12 million corporate and financial records. In addition to its unprecedented scope, this latest leak had one other key difference. Whereas previous revelations centered on anonymous companies in Central America or Caribbean jurisdictions refusing to halt their offshoring services, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’s reporting implicated a behemoth that has thus far escaped the kind of scrutiny it’s long deserved: the United States. Offshore once meant far-flung islands beyond the reach of major economies, but the U.S. has brought those same services back onshore—and, in so doing, evolved into one of the world’s greatest havens for financial secrecy.

This is a reality, and a trend, that has been developing for decades. Delaware, Nevada, and Wyoming have all spent years marketing themselves around the world as a welcome home for anonymous shell companies, providing legal secrecy and protection to anyone looking to bury their finances away from investigators and authorities. But as the Pandora Papers make clear, another state, South Dakota, has introduced a brand-new tool to pull in as much anonymous wealth as it can, attracting little attention and even less criticism. The ICIJ, which received the leaked data and partnered with news outlets around the world to publish them, identified more than 200 trusts created in the U.S., holding a total of $1 billion in assets. More than 80 of those trusts were in South Dakota—the most of any state.

Spoiler

Thanks to this leak, we finally have an idea of who’s been taking advantage of the state’s legal infrastructure for providing financial confidentiality. The documents reveal that in 2017, Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso, a former banker, sheltered assets in a pair of South Dakota trusts—only three months after Ecuador passed legislation barring politicians from using tax havens. In another example, family members of Carlos Morales Troncoso, the former vice president of the Dominican Republic, moved millions in assets into South Dakota trusts, along with shares controlling the country’s largest (and most controversial) sugar-production facilities. As The Guardian wrote, the Pandora Papers show that South Dakota “is sheltering billions of dollars in wealth linked to individuals previously accused of serious financial crimes.” Not all of the money is linked to kleptocrats, oligarchs, and shady politicians. But it’s clear that South Dakota trusts are a magnet for the kind of dirty money that corrupt leaders around the world have spent years trying to hide.

And yet the 200 trusts detailed in the ICIJ’s reporting are but a drop in the far larger ocean of money sloshing around in South Dakota’s financial institutions. The Pandora Papers estimate that South Dakota trusts now host some $360 billion in anonymous, untraceable assets. Other estimates put the figure at nearly $1 trillion—all of it stowed in, as the journalist Oliver Bullough recently noted, “probably the most potent forcefield for wealth available anywhere on earth.”

According to south dakota law, these trusts—formed as a result of state leaders looking to capitalize on growing global demand for financial anonymity, create jobs, and generate revenue—are regulated and legal. That description also applies to Delaware shell companies, anonymous Nevada corporations, and anonymous real-estate and private-equity investments—and although it is technically true, it doesn’t mean the underlying funds were legally acquired in the first place. (As the saying goes, the scandal isn’t what’s criminal, but what’s legal.)

South Dakota trusts provide precisely the kind of anonymity that clients are looking for. Not only can those establishing trusts list themselves as beneficiaries—contradicting the original purpose of a trust, which is to shield assets for others—but they don’t even need to visit the state to set one up. The state prohibits sharing information about these trusts with other governments, and any court documents pertaining to South Dakota trusts are kept private in perpetuity. More important, South Dakota pioneered regulations that allow its trusts (which typically expire after a century or so) to remain in place forever, forming the bedrock for dynastic wealth.

State officials say they’re keeping a close eye on any signs of questionable figures or finance flocking to the state. “We’re certainly always worried about the black eye of one nefarious actor, one money-laundering or white-collar crime, that somehow utilized our trust industry to commit wrongful acts,” says Tom Simmons, a trust-law expert at the University of South Dakota and a member of the state’s Trust Task Force, which helps steer the state’s pro-anonymity legislation. “It’s not the Wild West.”

In a sense, though, that’s precisely what it is. The Wild West technically had regulations on its books too—not that they stopped the railroad barons and crooked bankers from bending local laws to their own will, devastating communities along the way. Which is what the entire offshoring world, including South Dakota, has been doing on a progressively global scale.

So what should be done about all this? Although the U.S. has made significant headway in recent months when it comes to shell-company transparency, it’s continued to drop the ball regarding transparency for other financial entities. These include the anonymous, perpetual trusts South Dakota has spearheaded, but that’s hardly the only industry profiting from America’s evolution into the world’s greatest offshore haven. Real estate continues to be the country’s biggest sponge for anonymous, ill-gotten wealth, while hedge funds and private equity have ballooned in recent years to offshore destinations of their own. Along the way, America’s art market, auction houses, and luxury-goods dealers have all gotten in on the action—aided by the American lawyers, consultants, and accountants who can work with as much dirty money as they want, thanks to a range of loopholes and exemptions.

The U.S. is long overdue for an overhaul of its entire approach to stopping money laundering. As revealing a glimpse as the Pandora Papers provide, the ICIJ’s reporting represents a narrow slice of the suspicious wealth flowing directly into the heart of the American financial system—all of it looking to be hidden from prying eyes, and in many cases laundered, right here in the United States of Anonymity.

 

[bolverk 28885]

I wonder how many of Surly's legal eagles or buddies work at either of Baker McKenzie's Texas offices in Dallas and Houston.

 

[Fudge Nuggets 18825]

I imagine everyone whether they know it or not has done business with people and companies connected to political corruption, fraudulent business practices and authoritarian regimes

[Parliament 13979]

I live in Sx Falls and I could never understand how we support ALL of the law and financial services firms downtown.  It's like 10 acres of tall buildings full of lawyers and bankers.  And whole neighborhoods with >$700k houses.  In a State full of bumpkins (NTTAWWT).  Now I get it.  Kinda cool actually.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Parliament

[bolverk 28885]

3 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I imagine everyone whether they know it or not has done business with people and companies connected to political corruption, fraudulent business practices and authoritarian regimes

While that may be true, you might consider that, according to the investigation, this particular firm is "an architect and pillar of a shadow economy, often called “offshore,” that benefits the wealthy at the expense of nations’ treasuries and ordinary citizens’ wallets." And "When billionaires, multinationals and the politically connected seek to hide wealth or avoid taxes, they often turn to Baker McKenzie, the Chicago-based behemoth."

Finally:

An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reveals how Baker McKenzie has helped multinationals and the wealthy avoid taxes and scrutiny through the use of shell companies, trusts and complex structures in tax havens. These vehicles, shrouded in secrecy, hold vast riches – homes, yachts, stock and money that is sometimes of murky origin.

Among the clients: people and companies connected to political corruption, fraudulent business practices and authoritarian regimes.

The tweeted article goes into details about its long history in this game.

 

[bolverk 28885]

Just now, Parliament said:

I live in Sx Falls and I could never understand how this town could support ALL of the law and financial services firms downtown.  It's like 10 acres of tall buildings full of lawyers and bankers.  And who neighborhoods with >$700k houses.  In a State full of bumpkin (NTTAWWT)  Now I get it.  Kinda cool actually.

I don't know the particulars, but if my recollection serves me, Sioux Falls became a center for the credit card industry sometime in the 1990s. Maybe it was sometime around then that laws were changed that made it a hub for a bunch of financial services companies.

[TwiceHorn 30715]

2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I don't know the particulars, but if my recollection serves me, Sioux Falls became a center for the credit card industry sometime in the 1990s. Maybe it was sometime around then that laws were changed that made it a hub for a bunch of financial services companies.

In large part, it's their usury laws.  https://wallethub.com/edu/cc/usury-laws/25568

Their maximum interest rate is 50%.  Texas' is 10%. It also has relatively long limitations periods and probably some lax regulations of banks and financial institutions.

[bolverk 28885]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Their maximum interest rate is 50%.

That, alone, should be criminal.

[CooterBrown 17695]

Am I the only one that’s pleasantly surprised that Vlad supports his baby momma and didn’t have her assassinated?

[XYZ 2154]

Everyone should listen to George Carlin’s “American dream” rant at least once a year. Everything is explained in there. 

[TwiceHorn 30715]

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

I wonder how many of Surly's legal eagles or buddies work at either of Baker McKenzie's Texas offices in Dallas and Houston.

 

Funny thing.  Baker McKenzie is large and has a very substantial international footprint and has had for a long time.  Longer, say, than Norton Rose Fulbright, the Norton Rose being a British firm.

But it's not really good at most of the things American law firms are good at:  corporate finance, big ticket litigation, energy, IP, environmental, etc.  So I guess it really is all about shadowy international transactions.

[staboner 4938]

On 10/4/2021 at 11:30 AM, washparkhorn said:

Of course Tony Blair is on the list. 

 

 

 

 

[immamac 41337]

Water is wet. No one is going to get in trouble. Who cares. 

[bolverk 28885]

2 minutes ago, immamac said:

Water is wet. No one is going to get in trouble. Who cares. 

Thank you for so eloquently stating the precise nature of the problem.

[Parliament 13979]

1 hour ago, bolverk said:

I don't know the particulars, but if my recollection serves me, Sioux Falls became a center for the credit card industry sometime in the 1990s. Maybe it was sometime around then that laws were changed that made it a hub for a bunch of financial services companies.

Denny Sanford.  Google him.

[bolverk 28885]

6 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Denny Sanford.  Google him.

uffda

[Neonmoon 38126]

55 minutes ago, immamac said:

Water is wet. No one is going to get in trouble. Who cares. 

 

52 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Thank you for so eloquently stating the precise nature of the problem.

The worker bees will not rise up and attack the Queen as long as they get NFL and Big Macs 

[washparkhorn 9894]

Give them Bread and Circuses and they will never revolt. ~ Captain James T. Kirk, of the USSS Enterprise. 

[F250 28379]

"Who said that? WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT? Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant?"

- Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

 

[Biff Tannen 44917]

20 minutes ago, F250 said:

"Who said that? WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT? Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant?"

- Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

 

[TwiceHorn 30715]

5 hours ago, SimonBolivar said:

Gilded Age 2.0       

Here's the thing.  Sure, "trusts" were broken up, but does anyone think anything meaningfully changed?

It's always been like this, to a greater or lesser extent.  

I think now we understand it a little more, or a bit more widely.

Bigwigs everywhere are balls deep in everyone else. 

[immortal13 4059]

8 hours ago, Captainant said:

Well and if we talk about any issues substantively the discussion will invariably veer into the realm of politics - which is something many posters profess to want to avoid at all costs

Yes, sorry that offends the weird fucks like you. 

[deadshank 24644]

“The rich” (and I mean the truly rich and not the over-leveraged 50 cent millionaires) are truly different than you and me.  
 

Money gets power.  Power gets money.  Protect both.  
 

All hail and worship money.  Money is your god.  Worship it.  
 

I am way to the right of most of you and I know this is a problem.  But it is also the way of the world.  And a damn shame.  

 

 

[52-80 18962]

13 hours ago, XYZ said:

Everyone should listen to George Carlin’s “American dream” rant at least once a year. Everything is explained in there. 

 

[52-80 18962]

Current Serbian minister of finance and ex mayor of Belgrade used to oversee tender process for privatization of national oil and gas company.  It was sold to russian company, brokered by a Serbian named Dabic. 

A few years ago, investigative journalists charged that the minister illegally received 20+ holiday apartments in Bulgaria.  He could not support these purchases on his gov salary of <40,000 USD.  He denied owning such properties and offered to the journalists that "if you can find proof of these apartments, ill give you the keys to them".

Pandora papers revealed the Serbian minister does indeed hold 24 Bulgarian apartments totaling $6M+, all transferred from a guy named Dabic. 

 

No journalists have yet been made good on the bet.

 

 

[BabaYaga 15116]

Lots of ways to fix this.  Appetite to do so is zero.  

[BabaYaga 15116]

Highly recommend "Billion Dollar Whale" which is the book that outlines the Jho Lo 1MDB deal mentioned in article. Fascinating read and gives you good perspective on how people work these offshore shell accounts.

[Eskimohorn 5544]

I wonder how many of Surly's legal eagles or buddies work at either of Baker McKenzie's Texas offices in Dallas and Houston.
 

[Samson's Wig 3154]

All this shit does is further whet the public's appetite to "tax the rich", so then we go and pass tax reform that purports to do that very thing.   Next thing you know, the middle class is being bled dry and the rich are still riching along without paying their fair share.  Rinse and repeat. 

[ChickenSandwich 9749]

12 minutes ago, Samson&#x27;s Wig said:

All this shit does is further whet the public's appetite to "tax the rich", so then we go and pass tax reform that purports to do that very thing.   Next thing you know, the middle class is being bled dry and the rich are still riching along without paying their fair share.  Rinse and repeat. 

[sasquatch69 576]

19 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Funny thing.  Baker McKenzie is large and has a very substantial international footprint and has had for a long time.  Longer, say, than Norton Rose Fulbright, the Norton Rose being a British firm.

But it's not really good at most of the things American law firms are good at:  corporate finance, big ticket litigation, energy, IP, environmental, etc.  So I guess it really is all about shadowy international transactions.