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This week, there have been
a whole slew and deluge of stories
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coming out form the leak
of 11 million documents
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from a Panamanian-based law firm
called Mossack Fonseca.
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The release of these papers
from Panama
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lifts the veil on a tiny piece
of the secretive offshore world.
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We get an insight into how
clients and banks and lawyers
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go to companies like Mossack Fonseca
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and say, "Okay, we want
an anonymous company,
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can you give us one?"
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So you actually get to see the emails,
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you get to see the exchanges
of messages,
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you get to see the mechanics
of how this works,
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how this operates.
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Now this has already started
to have
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pretty immediate repercussions.
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The Prime Minister of
Iceland has resigned.
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We've also heard news that an ally
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of the brutal Syrian dictator
Bashar al-Assad
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has also got offshore companies.
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There's been allegations
of a 2 billion-dollar money trail
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that leads back to
President Vladimir Putin of Russia
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via his close childhood friend
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who happens to be a top cellist.
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And there will be a lot
of rich individuals our there
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and other who will be nervous
about the next set of stories
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and the next set of leaked documents.
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Now, this sounds like the plot
of a spy thriller
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or a John Grisham novel.
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It seemed very distant from
you and me ordinary people.
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Why should we care about this?
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But the truth is that if rich
and powerful individuals
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are able to keep their money offshore
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and not pay the taxes that they should,
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it means that there is less money
for vital public services
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like healthcare, education, roads,
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and that affects all of us.
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Now for my organization Global Witness,
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this exposé has been phenomenal.
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We have the world's media
and political leaders
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talking about how individuals can use
offshore secrecy
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to hide and disguise their assets,
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something we have been talking about
and exposing for a decade.
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Now I think a lot of people
find this entire world
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baffling and confusing
and hard to understand
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how this sort of offshore world works.
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I like to think of it a bit
like a Russian doll.
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So you can have one company
stacked inside another company,
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stacked inside another company,
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making it almost impossible
to really understand
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who is behind these strucutres.
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It can be very difficult
for law enforcement
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or tax authorities, journalists,
or civil society
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to really understand what's going on.
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I also think it's interesting
that there's been
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less coverage of this issue
in the United States,
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and that's perhaps because
some prominent US people
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just haven't figured in this exposé,
in this scandal.
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Now that's not because there are
no rich Americans
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who are stashing their assets
offshore.
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It's just because of the way in which
offshore works,
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Mossack Fonseca has fewer
American clients.
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I think if we saw leaks from
the Cayman Islands
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or even from Delaware
or Wyoming or Nevada,
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you would see many more cases
and examples
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linking back to Americans.
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In fact, in a number of US states,
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you need less information,
you need to provide less information
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to get a company than you do
to get a library card.
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That sort of secrecy in America
has allowed
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employees of school districts
to rip off school children.
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It has allowed scammers
to rip off vulnerable investors.
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This is the sort of behavior
that affects all of us.
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Now at Global Witness,
we wanted to see
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what this actually looked
like in practice.
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how does this actually work?
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So what we did is we sent in
an undercover investogator
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to 13 Manhattan law firms.
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Our investigator posed
as an African minister
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who wanted to move suspect funds
into the United States
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to buy a house, a yacht, a jet.
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Now what was truly shocking
was that all but one of those lawyers
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provided our investigator with suggestions
on how to move those suspect funds.
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These were all preliminary meetings
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and none of the lawyers took us on
as a client,
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and of course no money moved hands,
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but it really shows the problem
with the system.
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It's also important to not just
think about this
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as invidiaul cases.
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This is not just about
an individual lawyer
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who's spoken to our
undercover investigator
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and provided suggestions.
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It's not just about a particular
senior politician
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who's been caught up
in a scandal.
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This is about how a system works
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that entrenches corruption,
tax evasion, poverty and instability.
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And in order to tackle this,
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we need to change the game,
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we need to change the rules of the game
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to make this sort of behavior harder.
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This may seem like doom and gloom,
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like there's nothing we can do about it,
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like nothing has ever changed,
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like there will always be
rich and powerful individuals.
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But as a natural optimist,
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I do see that we are starting
to get some change.
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Over the last couple of years,
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we've seen a real push towards
greater transparency
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when it comes to company ownership.
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This issue was put on
the political agenda
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by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron
at a big G8 Summit
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that was held in Northern Ireland
in 2013.
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And since then, the European Union
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is going to be creating central registers
at a national level
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of who really owns and controls companies
across Europe.
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One of the things that is sad is that
actually the US is lagging behind.
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There's bipartisan legislation
that's been introduced
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in the House and the Senate,
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but it isn't making as much progress
as we'd like to see.
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So we'd really want to see
the Panama leaks,
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this huge peak into the offshore world,
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be used as a way of opening up
in the US and around the world.
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For us at Global Witness,
this is a moment for change.
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We need ordinary people
to get angry
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at the way in which people can hide
their identity behind secret companies.
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We need business leaders to stand up
and say,
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"Secrecy like this is
not good for business."
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We need political leaders
to recognize the problem
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and to commit to changing the law
to open up this sort of secrecy.
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Together, we can end the secrecy
that is currently allowing
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tax evasion, corruption, money laundering
to flourish.