Financial Transparency Coalition

Starting tomorrow a group of government officials and experts belonging to the world’s leading anti-money laundering organisation – the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – will be meeting in Paris. On the agenda is the adoption of a document on an issue that has major implications for the fight against crime, corruption and tax evasion around the world. It’s a shame nobody outside of this small circle of experts from governments and international organisations has had a chance to see the document before it comes out. According to the FATF website, at its upcoming plenary meeting the organisation will adopt...

There is just a week to go before the start of the Hidden Money, Hidden Resources conference in Lima, organized by the Financial Transparency Coalition and Latindadd, and the agenda covers a number of topics which are highly relevant to the Americas. The panel I´ve been invited to moderate, for example, will be exploring the links between citizen security, organized crime, corruption and money-laundering. Latin America and the Caribbean as a region has the highest levels of citizen insecurity in the world, and is the only region where criminal violence increased between 2000 and 2010 according to UNDP.

The use of shell companies to mask the true owners of assets is still on top of the political agenda and interest in the issue continues to grow. This week the UK government announced further details of its plan to implement a public registry of company ownership. This is important because shell companies can facilitate crime, corruption and tax evasion. Public registries of beneficial owners are seen as an effective and efficient way to counter anonymous company abuse, by allowing citizens, journalists and law enforcement authorities around the world easy access...

Last week the massive “Offshore Leaks” investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported the uncovering of the beneficial owners of thousands of offshore companies. Among the owners of offshore shell companies disclosed so far are several senior politicians and their close families in various countries.