Simon Bowers Profile picture
Jun 14, 2018 3 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Ever bought a pair of Nikes? 👟👟 Find out where the money goes...

My talk at @TEDxGlasgow takes you behind the scenes of an @ICIJorg investigation, piecing together the international money trail, from cash register to tax haven. #TaxAvoidance🛒🇳🇱🌴
This is just one example of @ICIJorg’s collaborative journalism working across borders to unlock global stories. If you’re interested in supporting this kind of work, you can donate here: icij.org/donate/ Or check out this thread
This @TEDxGlasgow talk was based on an article @ICIJorg published about Nike last November #ParadisePapers👇 icij.org/investigations…

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More from @sbowers00

Mar 8
Exactly 2yrs ago, the UK promised "new legislation to tackle economic crime following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine”
“...Reforms to bear down on the use of 🇬🇧LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS for money laundering, including ILLICIT RUSSIAN FINANCE”
But it's *not* working ⛔️Why?
( 🧵 1/)
To recap: Boris Johnson promised the UK would “open up the matryoshka dolls🪆of Russian-owned entities to find the ultimate beneficiaries within.”
(He’s right: it's often Russians who hide beneath layers of anonymity inside 🇬🇧PARTNERSHIPS)
2/
In truth, 🇬🇧's corporate register has been an enabler platform for Russia-linked kleptocracy, corruption, foreign influence, disinformation & organised crime since the 2000s. Thousands of anonymous PARTNERSHIPS were set up —including 💯s involved in laundering mega-scandals👇3/
Read 15 tweets
Oct 23, 2020
Thank you 🙏 to UK's Treasury Select Committee @CommonsTreasury for today launching a parliamentary inquiry into the UK's role in international money laundering in the wake of #FinCENFiles
@ICIJorg @BuzzFeedNews @BBCPanorama @PrivateEyeNews THREAD 1/7
#FinCENFiles showed 3,267 UK shell companies🇬🇧🐚 linked to suspicious bank transactions🕵️‍💰 — far more than companies from better known secrecy havens

@ICIJorg analyzed them and found 75% had been set up & maintained by just nine company formation agencies
2/7
When we looked closer at company formation agencies, we found:

▶️ Financial statements being signed without any checks
▶️ False financial statements omitting $$ 💯s millions (a criminal offense)
▶️ Allegations of forgery
▶️ Straw men/women controlled by overseas puppeteers
3/7
Read 7 tweets
Sep 23, 2020
6⃣signatures✍️✍️✍️✍️✍️✍️

⏩1⃣belongs to a Belgian dentist 🦷
⏩5⃣, the dentist says, to an imposter🥸

The "fake 5" are a sample from 💯s of annual financial statements filed by UK shell companies, bearing the dentist/imposter's signature

#FinCENFiles THREAD 1/13🧵
This thread gives some highlights from our #FinCENFiles reporting on shell-company formation agencies, their close ties to Baltic banks & the role they play in money laundering schemes.

You can continue on the thread (2/13)

Or get the full story here: icij.org/investigations…
The dentist/imposter is "Ali Moulaye", a straw man paid to front UK shell companies for IOS

IOS is a shell-company factory🏭🐚, creating anonymous firms loved by crooks

In the #FinCENFiles, we found 646 UK shells🐚 created by IOS that were linked to suspicious payments
(3/13)
Read 13 tweets
Sep 20, 2020
Ta-da: #FinCENFiles - a major collaborative journalism investigation!📢📢📢

“Wait, the FinCEN what?”

OK, here’s a quick bit of context….
(THREAD 🧵1/8)
The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, forced U.S. banks - much against their will - to secretly rat on their own customers, and on those with whom their customers did business, when they thought they were up to no good. (2/8)
By 1996, this mandatory snitching had become a vital intelligence-gathering tool (not least in the "war on drugs") and was formalized into Suspicious Activity Reports. After 9/11, SARs were firmly part of the "war on terror", too. (3/8)
Read 9 tweets
Sep 20, 2020
💥🔎 Big investigation breaking today 💥 6pm (UK/Ire), 7pm (Paris/Berlin), 1pm (NY)

Log on, tune in, listen up: Find out WHAT THE BANKS *REALLY* KNOW about crooks & their dirty money 💰

@ICIJorg, @BuzzFeedNews & >100 other media outlets #FinCENFiles.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 18, 2020
ICYMI: Whistleblower Amjad Rihan has won $10.8m damages from his former employer EY 6yrs after being pushed out for exposing a multi-billion-dollar cover-up in EY’s audit of Dubai gold refiner Kaloti.

Here's some highlights from the judgment ⚖️👇🔥THREAD - 1/8 Image
The 133-page decision is a HUGE victory for whistleblowing. 😇🍾🎺🎉

Perhaps EY imagined dragging Rihan & his family through a miserable legal claim would placate powerful figures in Dubai, or serve as a warning to other potential WBs.

If so, the plan has backfired 2/8
In court, EY claimed Rihan was a liar and a fantasist, a self-publicist and a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

The judge did not agree. ⚖️🎉 He found that the more Rihan was attacked, the clearer it became that the whistleblower was “truthful and honest”. 3/8 Image
Read 8 tweets

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