...and TAX3 chair Petr Ježek explains that these seven EU tax havens are able to block meaningful tax reforms at @EUCouncil, frustrating the will of other member states (all of which are missing tax revenues as a result of the 7) multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/press-confe…
...and who perfected this strategy of predatory EU tax competition blended with with cynical obstructive maneuvering at the EU Council level?
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/
#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
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.
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)
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
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