![The Bahamas have been on the radar of tax officials around the world for nearly a century](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2017/10/1200-bahamas-shutterstock_54949447_0-13.jpg)
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An ICIJ Investigation
Secrecy for Sale
Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze
Millions of leaked files from two financial service providers, a private bank in Jersey and the Bahamas corporate registry reveal how tax havens around the world are used to hide riches.
![The Bahamas have been on the radar of tax officials around the world for nearly a century](https://media.icij.org/uploads/2017/10/1200-bahamas-shutterstock_54949447_0-13.jpg)
Offshore clients
Leaked Records Reveal Offshore Holdings of China’s Elite
By Marina Walker Guevara
January 21, 2014
- Millions of leaked files from two financial service providers, a private bank in Jersey and the Bahamas corporate registry reveal how tax havens around the world are used to hide riches.
- Government officials and their families and associates in China, Azerbaijan, Russia, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia and other countries have embraced the use of covert companies and bank accounts.
- The mega-rich use complex offshore structures to own mansions, yachts, art masterpieces and other assets, gaining tax advantages and anonymity not available to average people.
- Many of the world’s top’s banks – including UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank – have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways.
- A well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives has helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.
- Ponzi schemers and other large-scale fraudsters routinely use offshore havens to pull off their shell games and move their ill-gotten gains.
BEHIND THE SCENES
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Apr 03, 2023
Ten years of exposing the financial secrets of some of the world’s most powerful people
Accountability
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Apr 03, 2023
Confronting the nexus of power and money, Pandora Papers inspires crime thriller
RUSSIA ARCHIVE
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Mar 14, 2023
Analysis of ICIJ data shows how to stop Russian oligarchs in their tracks
IMPACT
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Jun 14, 2024
Lithuania takes step toward reforms to strip citizenship after Cyprus Confidential revelations
Politics
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