Thread by @WillFitzgibbon

(Thread)

1/ #mauritiusLeaks is @ICIJorg’s latest offshore project. It started with a story we wrote in 2017 as part of the #paradisepapers investigation and continued when an anonymous source sent us a USB key in the mail that contained 200,000 files (thank you, whistleblower!)

2/ This was hard, dry stuff. No juicy emails to or from presidents or prime ministers trying to hide money. Instead, it was about a bunch of profitable companies trying to pay less money to rich and poor countries around the world.

3/ To understand the documents, I spoke to more than 70 tax and policy experts and to more than 20 tax officials from countries including Thailand, India, Egypt, Zambia and Nigeria.🇱🇸

4/ When I started mentioning the word “Mauritius”, I learned something very quickly. Country after country, especially in Africa, were angry that multinational corporations were using loopholes to avoid taxes thru Mauritius. Some felt powerless. Others were working to fix things.

5/ Thank you to the tax inspectors, treaty negotiators and government officials who spoke to me about their frustrations with corporate tax avoidance loopholes through Mauritius

6/ What else did I learn? Librarians are the best. The good people at the National Library of Mauritius helped me access old copies of hansard, newspaper archives and other documents not available online. Here's a 1992 news article.

7/ What else did I learn?

First, Mauritius is easy to mis-spell (we’ve all been there). Second, many people don’t know where it is. One PR guru said to me when we were on the phone: “Hang on a minute – let me find Mauritius on a map.”

8/ What else surprised me when reporting on #mauritiusleaks?
Threats of fisticuffs on the floor of parliament. In June 1992 as they debated the offshore bill, 1 parliamentarian in Mauritius threatened to “smash the face in” of another. (Here's a photo of records from parliament)

9/ Reporting on taxes freaks people out: when one of @ICIJorg’s reporting partners met over lunch with a source to talk about a powerful businessman, the source excused himself and said he had to go to the bathroom. He never came back.

10/ It’s a small world. One of the founders of Conyers Dill & Pearman (the law firm whose files form #mauritiusleaks) married a daughter of Reginald Appleby, the founder of the law firm whose files formed much of #ParadisePapers.