Thread by @phdskat

New leaked data from @ICIJorg provide more evidence how financial secrecy allows Russian elites to evade sanctions - and how prestigeous Western advisors enable this fraud.

Hello, #PandoraPapers: Russia.

A thread 🧵:

icij.org/investigations…

For background on Russian wealth offshore and prior investigative journalism, check out my previous thread:

https://twitter.com/phdskat/status/1497891818343735299?s=20&t=kQKkFjAGid1gkzYjJGZDjw

The new leaks, from Alpha Consulting, an offshore services provider based in the Seychelles, confirm several trends we already knew:

1) Russian elites rely heavily on the opacity, and favourable tax rules, provided by company structures in Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands (alongside other jurisdictions) to conduct their 'offshore affairs'

2) Russian elites - just like other elites - have the help of prestigeous Western advisors in taking advantage of financial secrecy and favourable tax rules. PwC, EY, RBS, a host of well-known law firms, feature centrally here.

icij.org/investigations…

And that's important: This is *not* something that happens on far-off sandy beaches alone. These abuse are enabled, front and center, by power brokers in London, New York, Singapore etc.

Research on these "enablers" clearly shows their global reach, strong presence in secrecy jurisdictions, and yet centralised control - such as in this great mapping from @RichardJMurphy and @thesailaway_CPH:

openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/2006…

.@EBHarrington's research on the offshore wealth advisory world has shown how these advisors play an ever-more-intricate "cat and mouse" game with authorities, all in the name of wealth preservation for global elites:

hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…

These are the same professionals, by the way, that play a crucial role in shaping global tax and financial transparency rules in the first place:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…

This is a key "double role" - professionals shaping globalization in their own interests *and* for the elites they serve. They are the "Lords of the Dance":

academic.oup.com/jpo/article-ab…

3) Financial secrecy is exploited *specifically* to avoid sanctions

Shuffling around company structures through shell companies, opaque ownership, makes it hard/impossible for authorities to identify true ownership of assets.

icij.org/investigations…

That's why discussion of radical new asset ownership transparency is now emerging. Otherwise, our current sanctions - like other regulation (e.g. tax) - will remain highly ineffective.

US: thehill.com/policy/finance…

EU: euractiv.com/section/econom…

/ends