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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

W CREATE

Company Name W CREATE
Date of Registration 22nd November 2015
Company Objective A.     the act as a holding company in the broadest sense;
n. Erect     the and acquire, participate in, cooperate with and to conduct the management of other companies, including through the provision of guarantees for other companies, especially those with which the Company is in a group connected; .
c     the participate in and conduct the management of other companies or companies regardless of their purpose;
d.     the activities referred to under b. and c. this item 2 will be made to the extent not inconsistent with the Ordinance Supervision Credit System and the National Ordinance on the Supervision of Trust Offices;
e.     the directly or indirectly invest its assets in property and rights to acquire, possess, rent, lease, lease, subdivide, drainage, develop, enhance, edit, cultivate, sell or otherwise dispose of, mortgage or otherwise encumber property and the construction of infrastructure projects such as roads, pipelines and similar works on immovable property;
f acquire     the, 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 movable and immovable property.;
g     the rent, lease, sublease, providing mortgage or otherwise of security rights in movable and immovable property or related rights and interests.;
h.     the provision of bail and other guarantees and transferring ownership whether or not in fiduci-aire ownership or trust or mortgage, pledge or otherwise encumber of vermogensbe-components, all this as security for the payment of debts the company and the debts of other legal or natural persons who are directly or indirectly linked to the company, whether or not for contraprestatie;
i. investing its assets in securities such as shares and other securities in respect of bonds and other interest-bearing receivables, by whatever name and in whatever form;
j      acting as finance and mediating in the realization of financing of all types of transactions.;
k.      the company may only carry out the activities listed in sub j. In such a way that they do not credit system can be considered as a credit institution as defined in Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Ordinance Supervision. It is also expressly prohibited without exemption, to perform Banking transactions referred to in Article 48 of the Ordinance Supervision; En     the complete or partial structure of pension provision for directors, former directors, shareholders, former shareholders and / or their survivors.; .
m     the perform all actions related to the above, all in the broadest sense;
n. 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
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