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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

COLMATH CONSTRUCTION AND SERVICES

Company Name COLMATH CONSTRUCTION AND SERVICES
Date of Registration 24th January 2015
Company Objective 1. performing commercial and residential projects and engage in designing, creating specifications, adopt and / or for their own account performing construction, reconstruction, repair, painting and maintenance, restoration, excavation and similar works, as well as performing and doing of management and supervision of the aforementioned activities;
2. developing its own account or for the account of third parties, own, operate and manage real estate, commercial and residential projects, also including, but not limited to, apartment complexes, shopping centers, offices and buildings in the broadest sense, and in general all facilities and equipment related to the operation and management of that business;
3. acquire, possess, alienate, manage, rent, lease, re or sublet, develop, lease, lease, subdivide, drainage, develop, enhance, edit, cropping and cultivation of immovable property and rights and interests in real estate cover, the construction of infrastructure projects such as roads, pipelines and similar works on immovable property;
4. acting as project developer in general, more particularly of commercial and residential projects;
5. operating a construction bureau, preparation of construction programs, to design, calculate, design and the preparation of projects in commercial, financial, civil and architectural area, and supervising, coordinating, conducting management and monitoring of these projects, plant and similar matters;
6. the performance of the brokerage in the broadest sense;
7. for their own account and on behalf of third parties acting, including the purchase, sale, import and export of- and transit, wholesale, retail, agenturen- and commission trade:.
a building materials and machinery in particularly construction materials and machinery required for the development of construction projects and land;
b. in- and manufacture of building materials in general, and, more particularly, timber, timber, sand, crushed stone, cement, concrete mortar and cement and other building products, as well as the woodworking and processing;
c. in building materials and tools, paint products, hardware, wood, tiles and various items normally sold in a hardware store;
d. in all types of refrigeration and electrical equipment, including but not limited to air conditioners, refrigeration 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;
foregoing so far in connection with the above work;
8. hire and rent, in use, lease and operate heavy equipment (heavy equipment "), machines and tools needed for the site preparation, construction, repairs and maintenance,.
9 represent, defend and promote of minority interests in above mentioned areas both in the widest sense and more specifically:..
a provision of advice and the provision of services in architectural, engineering, real estate and related fields;
b manage and / or administration of assets of any kind and acting as a collection agency;.
c acting as Agent, administrator;.
d take it for third parties in its name of movable and immovable property and the management and administration of those matters;
10 setting bail and other guarantees, jointly and severally connect and transfer the ownership - whether in fiduciary or trust - or mortgage, pledge or otherwise encumber assets, foregoing security for. the payment of the debts of the company and the debts of third parties, whether in return contraprestatie;
11. 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;
12. 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 paragraph, of the State Ordinance supervision insurance;
13. building and ensuring pensions for the benefit of, and distributions to shareholders Directors of the Company or its affiliates, and their survivors;
14. acting as finance and mediating in the realization of financing of all types of transactions;
15. the company's activities under paragraph 14 may only carry out in such a way that they do not as a credit institution as defined in Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Ordinance Supervision Credit System can be considered. It is also expressly prohibited without exemption, to perform Banking transactions referred to in Article 48 of the Ordinance Supervision;
16. to participate in, support to or interested in any way with, or carry it on board or representation observing other companies, partnerships and legal persons, regardless of the object clause;
17. the performance of all work and all actions, which are related to the above in the broadest sense, arising therefrom or may be conducive thereto;
18. the above will be made to the extent permitted by and subject to the provisions under or pursuant to the relevant legislation.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
Previous Company Random Next Company