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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

AZZURRA LIMITED

Company Name AZZURRA LIMITED
Date of Registration 22nd November 2005
Company Objective 1. acting as a holding company in
1. EXERCISING THE BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION COMPANY.
THE EXPLOIT OF A BARBER COMPANY. 2. THE WHOLESALE AND RETAIL IN CLEANING, position EITHER THE CARE OF TENDERS OF SUCH PRODUCTS, SPORTS, LESSONS, WATER-COOLING AND FINISHING MATERIALS, AS WELL AS TO TO ACCEPT AND animal Kijsto AND WELDING; ORGANIZING, AND GIVE GIVE GIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF MISCELLANEOUS NATIONAL AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE PERSONS WHO ARE IN BERMUDAN OUTGOEDE GOODS AND WRITING BETING THE MEANING OF THE WORD, AND/OR BELONGING IN GENERAL AND IN PARTICULAR THE PROVISIONS OF APPLICABLE LAW IN THE MATTER of the legal profession; 2. THE ACTION AS A HOLDING COMPANY OR CREDIT as a credit institution or credit UN OBTAINING OF PROPERTY AND ALL OTHER ACTS IN THE COMMERCIAL, INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL FIELD. 2. The corporation may not be active in or outside of Bermuda as a credit institution or credit association as referred to in the Bank and Credit system Supervision Act. The corporation may not participate in the Bermudan commercial traffic, except for those transactions which are necessary to maintain the administration of an office in Bermuda. 3. The corporation is authorized to perform any and everything for the achievement of its objective which can be necessary or useful, or stands in relationship therewith, in the broadest sense of the word, including the participation in any other enterprise or company and also to perform all other actions in the commercial, industrial and financial area.
Country
bermuda
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 66
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