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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

AFB BUSINESS SOLUTIONS

Company Name AFB BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Date of Registration 1st March 2016
Company Objective 1.a. the provision of commercial storage for food either frozen, chilled, fresh and dried products and other foods, including meat, poultry, fish and others;
b. it (do) build, administer, manage, possess, encumber, decorating, operate, organize, create, maintain, improve, lease, providing services in the exploitation and disposal of commercial office and cold storage;
c. trade (including the retail, wholesale, agenturen- and commission business) as well as the import and export, manufacturing, marketing, representation and distribution of food products, including but not limited to frozen, chilled, fresh and dried products and other;
d. trade (including the retail, wholesale, agenturen- and commission business) as well as the import and export, manufacturing, marketing, representation and distribution of business equipment, technology, products and materials;
e. the (sub) lease, manage, possess, develop, acquire, lease, dispose of, acquire and mortgaging or generally encumber registered goods and / or any right or interest in registered property both for himself and for third parties;
F. directly or indirectly invest its resources in registered property and other property rights, obtain, possess, lease, rent, lease, lease, subdivide, drainage, develop, enhance, edit, cultivate, sell or otherwise dispose of, mortgaging, pledging or otherwise encumber registered property and the construction of infrastructure projects such as roads, pipelines and similar works on real property; and
g.     the perform all activities and all actions, which are related in the broadest sense of the foregoing, ensuing from or may be conducive thereto.
2.     onder It includes the founding purpose of the company and acquire, participate in, cooperate with and to conduct the management of other companies, all this to the extent not inconsistent with funds from the National Ordinance on the supervision of trust offices, as well as (do), including through the provision of securities, of other firms, especially (but not limited to) those which the company forms a group, all this in such a way that the company does not credit system can be considered as a credit institution within the meaning of the Ordinance supervision.
3. Within its goal, the company can carry out all what holds for this purpose in the broadest sense, both for its own account and for third parties.
4. The above will be made to the extent permitted by and subject to the provisions under or pursuant to the relevant laws.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
Previous Company Random Next Company