The United States is fast becoming one of the most important offshore financial centers on the planet. Supporting documents, the “Pandora Papers” confirm the findings of NGOs and economists, who denounce the ambivalent political choice of the world’s leading economic power to lead the fight against foreign tax havens, while letting it prosper on its own. territory of tax-free and opaque zones in Delaware, Nevada or Wyoming.
Together, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the Washington post have identified a fourth US state that engages in a thriving anonymity “trust” registration business: South Dakota. The “trust” is a structure based on secrecy, which allows wealthy individuals to relinquish – on paper – their heritage (money, villas, shares in companies or works of art), by transferring it to a trusted third party.
However, according to the survey of our partners, based on the archives of an offshore services firm, Trident Trust, established in Sioux Falls (180,000 inhabitants), tens of millions of dollars are converging on this sparsely populated American state in the Midwest. , which has become a major destination for foreign money. In total, the “trusts” of South Dakota total 360 billion dollars (310 billion euros). of assets.
From the Bahamas to Sioux Falls
Without ever attracting attention, South Dakota has benefited fully from the transparency imposed on small Caribbean tax havens, especially under pressure from the United States, to recover large sums of money. Proof of this is given by the “Pandora Papers”.
Thus, at the end of 2018, the Bahamas adopted an anti-money laundering law, requiring companies and certain trusts to declare their beneficial owners. A few days later, the “trusts” of the family of the former vice-president of the Dominican Republic, Carlos Morales Troncoso, flew from the Bahamas to… Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Solicited, the Morales family did not respond.
What are the “Pandora Papers”?
“Pandora Papers” is a collaborative investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in partnership with 150 international media, including The world. It is based on the leak of nearly 12 million confidential documents, transmitted by an anonymous source to the ICIJ, from the archives of fourteen firms specializing in the creation of offshore companies in tax havens (British Virgin Islands, Dubai, Singapore, Panama, the Seychelles…).
Five years after the “Panama Papers”, the survey reveals the extent of the abuses of the offshore industry and its limited companies. She shows how this system benefits hundreds of policymakers, and how new tax havens are taking over as old ones convert to transparency.
The ICIJ has also identified several “trusts” linked to personalities under judicial investigation, or whose companies have been accused of embezzlement. Among them, Guillermo Lasso, elected president of Ecuador in April, who created “trusts” in South Dakota four years ago. When questioned, the head of state said that everything was “Legal and legitimate” and that he complied with Ecuadorian law, which, however, prohibited officials from owning offshore companies.
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