The enormous value of whistleblowers has once again been demonstrated with the release this week of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists into off-shore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories hiding trillions of dollars in income and assets.
An anonymous whistleblower sent to the ICIJ 2.5 million electronic files containing what the organization calls “the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization.”
Kudos to the 86 journalists from 46 countries who analyzed the data and followed up with additional reporting to put together the incredible and detailed expose, “Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze.”
But the biggest kudo should go to the whistleblower who had the guts to expose a high-stakes, secretive world that fosters and hides large-scale fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, corruption and other wrongdoing.
The investigation looked into what it called “a well-paid industry of accountants, middlemen and other operatives” that has “helped offshore patrons shroud their identities and business interests, providing shelter in many cases to money laundering or other misconduct.”
This industry, the report says, includes many of the world’s top “brand-name” banks, including UBS, Clariden and Deutsche Bank, that “have aggressively worked to provide their customers with secrecy-cloaked companies in the British Virgin Islands and other offshore hideaways.”