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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

QCS

Company Name QCS
Date of Registration 19th August 2008
Company Objective 1. To establish, maintain and install various types of computer systems related to hardware and software;
2. designing, hosting, installation and maintenance of Internet / Intranet sites, including associated services;
3. providing advice and services relating to the construction and maintenance of cable systems and telecommunications systems;
4. the provision of services, assistance and advice on alternative computing and server operating systems;
5. the provision of services, assistance and advice on data protection, recovery, storage, ORGanlseren, and other types of data manipulations with automation processes, as well as on the procurement, installation, repair and maintenance of computers, servers, network, and such processing systems and equipment;
6. providing assistance and advice in software use, computer use, data science and technology of the electronics as well as in datacomminicatie, computer, electronics, automation and automation projects;
7. providing training in the field of computer science and assisting computer users, as well as in the field from and to create and maintain websites and web design;
8. 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 of pension insurance with an insurer that holds a license as referred to in Article 5 paragraph of the National Ordinance supervision insurance;
9. building and securing pension benefit of- and making distributions to shareholders Directors of the Company or its affiliates, and their survivors;
10. participating imports, may support buying interest in any way, for or represent a maximum of point e enterprises, partnerships and legal persons, regardless of the target description.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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