Offshore A-Z is a digital repository of companies operating across major tax havens. Offshore A-Z exploits the inscrutability of such companies to speculate on their possible nature and intent. Each company listed on here is real, but the information surrounding these consist of both actual records, obtained by dmstfctn, and speculative images and mission statements, generated by algorithms.

Tax havens, or secrecy jurisdictions, employ laws and corporate regulations different from those of most jurisdictions, using secrecy as a prime tool. Furthermore, the agents operating offshore on behalf of clients elsewhere have been observed by dmstfctn to willfully introduce mistakes in the records held on the companies they help forming. (Offshore Investigation Vehicle)

When offshore companies are but a bundle of papers held in private storages, these practices contribute to a number of possible configurations of any given offshore company, whose records are at once factually correct and conveniently flawed.

Offshore A-Z plays with the idea that truth is not one nor static, and that it does not need to be upheld equally at all times or in all fora.

Obtaining the data

The data contained within Offshore A-Z comes from a number of sources. Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency. Employing data scraping techniques, dmstfctn extracted records on hundreds of thousands of companies appearing in a number of such registrars.

Yielding varying amounts of information, and naturally full of gaps - sometimes full company details and descriptions, sometimes little more than a name - the records were cross referenced with data from the ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks as well as Financial Secrecy Index scores from the Tax Justice Network, and compiled into a single searchable database.

Training the algorithms

Algorithms were then trained to fill in the gaps in information. Using keywords from the company’s records as a trigger, the algorithms associate images with each nondescript company and complete missing fields by guessing possible incorporation dates or by generating corporate mission statement via a simple neural network. The coherency and accuracy of the neural network is directly undermined by the opaque source material, or incomplete input records. Finally, companies previously named in the Offshore Leaks ( for example) are hyperlinked to the relevant entry on the ICIJ database, allowing user to investigate further.

Compiling the template

The resulting information is autonomously built into a Web 2.0 page, employing a visual grammar similar to that used by existing registrars of companies. However, under intense scrutiny, the template mealts away revealing warm hues and floating forms.

This cycle of actions is repeated for each unreleased company found in the database and publicly announced by a Twitter bot.

Zooming in

Among the companies listed on the Offshore A-Z, a few appearing to be embedded in complex offshore vehicles were further investigated, resulting in three stories focusing on the funding behind Leave.EU, the corporate tax-avoidance of Barclays and the colonial origins of HSBC.

Offshore A-Z is a project by dmstfctn.

M/V BENG LIAN NO. 8 NV

Company Name M/V BENG LIAN NO. 8 NV
Date of Registration 20th November 1996
Company Objective 1.     the exercise of the shipping business in the broadest sense, including:
a     the acquire, hold and dispose of seagoing ships. .
b     the rent and lease of own ships, chartered vessels and / or third party vessels; .
c     the charter, chartering and loading own ships, chartered vessels and / or third party vessels; .
d     the act as agent;
E     the act as agency in the purchase and sale of vessels.;
f     the act as agency for the purchase and sale of companies with similar objectives regardless of the legal status of those companies (including consequently includes also the so-called "one ship enterprises').
g     the conduct. of directors for similar companies;...
h     alle other activities related to shipping and can be conducive to the above, in the broadest sense of the word

2 obtain     the, own, manage, sell, exchange, transfer, trading and disposal of shares, bonds, funds, order papers, debentures and other securities, borrowing and issuing debentures therefor, and lending money.

3.     the direct and indirectly invest its funds in real estate and rights to acquire, possess, alienate, rent, lease, lease, lease, subdivide, drainage, develop, enhance, cropping, mortgaging or general concerns of real estate and the construction of roads , dikes and similar works on immovable property.

4.     the trade, including the import and export of raw materials, minerals, metals, semi-finished products, finished products and finished products of any kind.

5.     het represent and manage third-party interests.

6.     the company is authorized to anything that might be useful or necessary to achieve its purpose or therewith in the broadest sense of the term, including participating in any other business or company with similar or related objects.

7.     ter performance of its goal to provide the company guarantees and other guarantees, as well as shares in other companies transfer the ownership or pledge, all this either as security for the payment of debts of the company, or those of third parties, as well as performing all actions which keep the above in the broadest sense of the term may relate or be conducive to that end.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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