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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

RELIANT CONSTRUCTION & MECHANICAL SERVICES

Company Name RELIANT CONSTRUCTION & MECHANICAL SERVICES
Date of Registration 21st January 2007
Company Objective 1. THE SUPERVISION AT AND TO FIX UP and repair maritime and industrial installation;
2. To render serviceS of technical nature, to take care of and to maintain vessels, machinery and installations;
3. To establish and BUILD INSTITUTIONS, required for mentioned vessels, machinery and installations;
4. to clean equipments, refine installations, vessels, tanks and boilers;
5. THE TREATMENT and painTING OF vessels, machinery and installations;
6. to MANAGE one or more workshops FOR THE PERFORMING OF CARPENTRY, PLUMBING AS WELL AS THE CONSTRUCTION, REPAIR AND MAINTENANCEWORK.
7.TO PRACTISE THE BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTIOIN, MAINTENANCE , CONSERVATION AND INSTALLATIONSERVICES INCLUDING METAL AND WELDINGACTIVITIES, PLUMBING, BRICKLAYING AND CARPENTRY, ELECTRICAL AND INSTRUMENTARIUM INSTALLATION;
8. to render service in project developing by promoting the construction of immovable and movable properties and the guidance and coordination of the operation thereof, as well to advise and mediate with regard to transactions in immovable and movable AFFAIRS;
9. to provide constructional and technical related adviCes and to supervise in the execution of works mentioned under 1;
10. to design, calculate, construct, execute and have execute civil construction works as well as in the private as in the public sector, including renovation and restoration;
11. TO rent and lease machines, HEAVY EQUIPMENTS and tools required for the construction, repair and maintenance operations of building works;
12.    to mediate AT PLACING staff members and/or personnel for private organizations and/or government entities, within the framework of correct placING IF NECESSARY in the form of temporary LABOR or part-time WORK;
13.. To operate a sandblasting-, hydroblasting and millwright company;
13. THE TRADE IN INSTALLATIONS, PARTS, ARTICLES, PRODUCTS AND INSTRUMENTS AND TOOLS IN THE FIELD OF SAFETY AND FIRE PREVENTION.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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