The existence of an extraordinary global network of sham company directors, most of them British, can be revealed.

"They won't even know that they were a director, they just get paid."

"This Caribbean territory, which is ultimately controlled by the UK, has sold more than a million anonymously-owned offshore entities since launching itself in 1984 as a tax haven."

"We are applying specialist software to crunch through literally hundreds of thousands of offshore entities to look for patterns. We are marrying our findings with old-fashioned shoe leather and interviews from key insiders who can provide further context on this little known and loosely regulated world."

"if we were approached by the Indian tax authorities and they say we believe you are acting for this client and he is doing money laundering, we would give the information. If they said we were acting for this client and they are doing tax evasion, we wouldn't give a monkey's."

"(he) offers his customers "anonymity of the ultimate owners". He tells them: "The prime advantage … is to place the 'management and control' issue firmly outside a high tax jurisdiction." This allows the owners to claim the company is being run from an overseas tax haven, rather than from where they live."

"The UK government refuses to step in and make reforms. One reason was candidly spelled out by Michael Foot, a former Bank of England official and Financial Services Authority managing director. He reported to the then Labour chancellor, Alistair Darling, in a Treasury paper published in 2009, saying that to abolish the BVI's secrecy regime "would be likely to result in a loss of business".



they don't talk very much about layering - where nominee directors and shareholders are other shell companies, or trusts. This is an essential component of any "sophisticated" scheme.

The investigation seems to focus more on nominees being independent service providers or small firms: they (perhaps for reasons of libel management) don't really talk about where nominee directors and shareholders are provided by and within banks & trust companies, wealth management arms of some well-known names. That would make a very interesting area to explore (see more on that in our intermediaries project.)

The UK's Guardian newspaper has, together with the BBC's Panorama and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ,) put together a large-scale investigation of the offshore industry and its secrets. Read the opening article , and follow the associated links at the Guardian and also the ICIJ website , which promises to have even more. None of what in this excellent investigation will surprise readers of Treasure Islands, but it is extremely important to have such an in-depth investigation bolstering our case.The investigation begins:BBC Panorama tonight will show an undercover investigator asking James Turner, of Turner Little in York, to help him hide money stashed in a Swiss bank, and he offers nominee directors in Belize and says:That bit in bold is extraordinary, and it seems it's not uncommon either: another company representative explained "that many of its nominees are not even aware of how their names are being used." The investigation finds 21,500 companies through just nominee directors. They find the British Virgin Islands (BVI) particularly troubling - something that TJN has been shouting about for a long time: while Cayman is the first Caribbean jurisdiction most people think of in the context of tax havens, the BVI has not got nearly enough attention. This needs to change, dramatically. The UK appears to have some plans to clean up, but as we've noted, while this appears to be significant we don't have a lot of confidence in its potential for real change.We are also delighted to read that a worldwide research effort has been launched this year by the ICIJ. It aims to identify, country by country, thousands of the true owners.An official from one of the companies approached, in Hertfordshire in the UK, said And the subsequent conversation made matters somewhat worse. Another official is described Now read on . This is what the Fourth Estate is for. Gradually, bit by bit, fragments of Britain's "second empire" are being dragged out into the light of day. Why has Britain not reformed this swamp?It really is as sordid as that. There are of course many other aspects of this we'd like to see covered, for instance:Further articles so far:And theGuardian's investigation will continue through the week. Read about it here . The ICIJ is promising a multi-year investigation, which will be an important global resource on tax havens for years to come. Click here