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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

WEST AFRICA SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC INITIATIVE A.V.V.

Company Name WEST AFRICA SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC INITIATIVE A.V.V.
Date of Registration 19th April 2008
Company Objective 1. Promoting economic development in developing countries, whether through the provision of financial resources, "know-how", goods or services.
2. Working together with governments, charitable, social or other institutions or organizations, and / or needy . people
3 a holding shares;...
b to invest capital
2 the company may not act as a credit institution as defined in Article 1 paragraph of the Ordinance supervision credit System
3 the company.... which in respect of its business meets the criteria of a credit institution as defined in the Ordinance supervision credit System is not yet considered as such if the company:.. after a group financing has been provided for in the national decree AB 2000 29 which is defined only other exception by national decree implementing the provisions of
or under Article 1 paragraph 2 of the Ordinance supervision credit System;
b. By order of the Central Bank of Aruba referred to in Article 1 paragraph 3 Ordinance Supervision Credit System does not qualify as such. It is expressly forbidden the company, unless exempted by the Central Bank of Aruba,
zich directly or indirectly, to refer to the public in respect of the commercial raising funds or in respect of the commercial grant credits, or in any form then arbitrate, subject to the provisions of Article 48 of the Ordinance supervision credit System.
4. THE COMPANY IS NOT PARTICIPATING IN THE ECONOMIC ARUBAN TRAFFIC EXCEPT THAT ACTS WHICH ARE NECESSARY FOR HOLDING AN OFFICE IN ARUBA.
5. 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, and to undertake
of all other operations on commercial industrial and financial areas.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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