@debbiecenziper found a key file from #pandorapapers listing Americans with secretive trusts in Belize.
Robert Durst? ✅
Marc-Collins Rector ✅
Fraudsters ✅
2/ We honed in on CILTrust, an offshore provider that helps people set up trusts and companies in Belize, a little-known Central American tax haven.
CILTrust, once CitiTrust, is part owned by Glenn Godfrey, a former attorney general.
3/ For more than 1 month, we repeatedly contacted Mr Godfrey, his wife and companies through 4 emails. I left phone messages with his employees. We called the phone of a friend, even.
No reply. Last night in Belize, Mr Godfrey replied. Watch here.
4/ One American to whom CILTrust provided services was Robert Durst.
You know, the guy convicted of murder last month.
Years ago, when he was under investigation for a separate murder, his lawyers wrote to CILTrust about a Belizean trust.
5/ Belize is well-known for tourism.
But, in the words of one former U.S. diplomat I spoke to, Belize is also "the hole in America's back fence."
For years, Belize has been infamous for welcoming Americans who wanted to escape the IRS, prosecutors or anyone else.
5/ Among #pandorapapers: more than 100 requests for information from CILTrust by the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, Belgium and Austria who wanted help cracking criminal cases, including corruption.
The documents don't always show how CILTrust replied.
6/ CILTrust provided services to Robert F Smith, who settled a tax probe last year, and Jared Wheat, who is facing federal money laundering charges. He denies wrongdoing.
Exclusive documents from #pandorapapers show interactions between the Belizean provider and these Americans
8/ Why do we care?
Because investigators tracking money and victims who are owed compensation from people who appear in #pandorapapers often had no idea these Americans had offshore assets.
Such assets could play a potentially significant role in justice.
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.@ICIJorg's #pandorapapers investigation is the largest ever involving African reporters. This is the core of what @ICIJorg does - no other organization gets close to our commitment to global partnerships.
53 African reporters worked on #pandorapapers. Let me share a few stories
1/ When @ICIJorg first got the #pandorapapers, I wanted to see what we could learn about the U.S. as a tax haven. I’d heard rumors, but wanted to see WHO and WHAT was using secrecy inside the US.
2/ With @delreuter, we spent months poring over 12 million records to identify more than 200 U.S. trusts, many of which were in South Dakota.
Of those, almost 30 trusts were tied to people, firms and assets linked to allegations of wrongdoing, including human rights abuses.
3/ @debbiecenziper, @salwangeorges@BrendaMedinar travelled to California, South Dakota and the Dominican Republic to connect the wonky world of trusts (what they heck are they, anyway?) to real people.
And real suffering. (Check out @salwangeorges's moving photos)
1/ @ICIJorg’s new investigation - #FinCENFiles - is our largest collaboration with journalists in Africa so far. There are new faces for us in Togo, Cameroon, The Gambia and beyond.
1/ When @ICIJorg started the #FinCENFiles investigation 1 year ago, I thought I’d do what I usually do – work with great partners in places like Liberia, Turkmenistan, beyond. Then Covid19 happened.
But collaboration means we could do our work despite a global lockdown.
2/ I found myself reporting from North Carolina about a family devastated by fentanyl, a deadly opioid, and the financial circuit it had taken from China to the Tar Heel State.
3/ The story started with just one line in an Excel spreadsheet. From there, @ICIJorg and others pieced together the story through court documents, interviews, media reports.
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.🇱🇸