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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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.

AION INVESTMENTS & PROPERTIES

Company Name AION INVESTMENTS & PROPERTIES
Date of Registration 9th May 2005
Company Objective 1. adopt and / or for their own account execute construction, demolition, renovations, repairs and maintenance, earthmoving and - similar works, as well as the supervision of the said work;
2. acting as project developer in general, more particularly of commercial and residential projects;
3. designing, creating specifications, adopt, alter, maintain, painting, demolition, renovation, arranging and conducting of commercial and residential projects;
4. the direct or indirect investment of its assets in real estate and rights to acquire, possess, rent, lease, lease, lease, subdivide, drainage, develop, enhance, edit cultivate selling or otherwise disposing of, mortgaging or otherwise encumber immovable property and the construction of infrastructure projects such as roads, pipelines and similar works on immovable property;
5. developing its own account or for the account of third parties, whether or not a owned -, operate and manage:
a. hotels, time-share resorts, Aparthotels, townhouses, bungalows, apartments, condominiums and villas and other residential units of any kind;
b. facilities in the area of ​​sport and recreation of all types;
c. exercise in its own name and at their own risk:
coffee houses, pubs, beer houses and restaurants;
-offices (souvenir) shops, markets, convenience stores, mini-markets, jewelry stores, shopping malls and other commercial institutions of any sort;
- telecommunication and data communication services, in particular, with regard to the Internet including begrepende provide access to the Internet;
- congress and activity centers; - Spas, health centers, beauty salons, drugstores and optician business;
- agencies; - Night clubs; and - all facilities for recreation and tourism;
6. it happens specified in paragraph 5 of this article, requires much, while respecting the provisions of the Authorization Regulation;
7. acquire, possess, alienate, management and development of movable and immovable property as well as the acquisition, possession, transfer and management of rights and interests relating to real or personal property;
8. rent, lease, sublet, mortgage or otherwise providing of security rights in immovable Be it moveable property or related rights and interests;
9. the performance of the brokerage in the broadest sense;
10. cleaning and disinfecting, both chemically and mechanically, by construction, land and slopers- works and other buildings, industrial plants, vessels, marine equipment, machinery and technical equipment of all kinds;
11. trade in construction materials and machinery, especially construction materials and machinery required for the development of construction projects and land;
12. hire and rent, in use, lease and operate heavy equipment (heavy equipement), machines and tools needed for the site preparation, construction, repairs and maintenance;
13. trade including the retail, wholesale, import, export, transit, agenturen- and commission trade in all types of refrigeration and electrical equipment, including but not limited to air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers, water cooling equipments, restaurant equipment, pneumatic equipment, hoods, mechanic articles and electrical materials, as well as designing, building or doing construction and advising in relation to refrigeration and electrical installations;
14. the setting of bail and other guarantees and ownership transfer whether in fiduciary or trust or mortgage, pledge or otherwise encumber assets, all this as security for the payment of the debts of the Company and the third party debt , whether or not for contraprestatie;
15. investing its assets in securities such as shares and other securities in respect of bonds and other interest-bearing debt, by whatever name and in whatever form;
16. the benefit of management, staff, employees and / or former employees of the company or of its affiliates and / or closing their survivors to: standing right, annuity contracts and agreements of pension insurance with an insurer who is in possession of a authorization referred to in Article 5
First member of the State Ordinance supervision insurance;
17. building and ensuring pension in favor of - and making distributions to shareholders Directors of the Company or its affiliates, and their survivors;
18. acting as finance and mediating in the realization of financing - all kinds of transactions;
19. The company may carry out the activities mentioned in point 18 only in such a way that they do not credit system as a credit institution as defined in Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Ordinance Supervision - can be considered. explicitly the hair is prohibited without exemption, to perform Banking transactions mentions in Article 48 of the Ordinance Supervision;
20. participating input, providing support on or is in any way interested in continuing, or carry it over or directors perceive the representation of other companies, partnerships and legal persons, regardless of the object clause;
21. the performance of all work and all actions, which are related in the broadest sense of the foregoing, ensuing from or may be conducive thereto.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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