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Offshore Registration Business Forced to Halt Operations

Taylor Network shut down by New Zealand Authorities

Business registration operations run by the Auckland-based Taylor family, including GT Group, NZCI, and companies in New Zealand and Vanuatu were shut down by New Zealand authorities in early June according to press reports and a letter from Ian Taylor to clients.

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Crime Goes Offshore

East European criminals and corrupt politicians have found in offshore havens a tool so perfect that it has permanently changed how business is done in the region.  By using offshore laws that stress secrecy over everything else including crime prevention, they have been able to set up networks of offshore companies where they can hide their assets from police, launder their money and evade taxes all at the same time.

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Laszlo Kiss - The Offshore Master

 By Mihai Munteanu

In a small, well-appointed boardroom just steps from the Romanian Government Building, Laszlo Gyorgy Kiss sketches on a sheet of paper to help an undercover reporter with him understand. The reporter from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has told Kiss he wants to hide his ownership in a large oil deal, he says.

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Kiss: Police Arrest Kiss

By Mihai Munteanu

Kiss Behind Bars

Romanian police arrested offshore consultant Laszlo Gyorgy Kiss in Bucharest in early October, one month after reporters working undercover for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) recorded him explaining how to cheat on taxes with offshore companies.

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Kiss: The Taylor - Kiss Network

By Mihai Munteanu

In mid-December of 2009, a Russian-built cargo jet landed at Don Muang airport in Bangkok for routine refuelling.  It was not routine as later news accounts made clear. Thai Special Forces acting on a tip from a foreign intelligence agency swarmed the Ilyushin 76 and arrested the crew of four Kazakhs and a Belarusian. Inside they found not the oil drilling equipment listed on the plane’s manifest, but 35 tons of weapons including anti-aircraft missiles and computer-controlled rocket launchers.

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Kiss: Hiding Ownership Offshore

By Mihai Munteanu

Laszlo Kiss explains in a book how to hide ownership in a Delaware company

Before he was arrested for money laundering, tax evasion and organized crime, Romanian offshore consultant Laszlo Gyorgy Kiss explained to an undercover reporter from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) the art of hiding ownership of a company.  He dedicated a chapter to the topic in his book, "United States, Tax Heaven – Uncle Sam Will Fight Your Taxes!" (http://www.delaware.ro).

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Kiss: Romania Almost an Offshore

By Mihai Munteanu

Kiss Was Consulted about Turning Romania Into an Offshore Haven

Eight years ago, Varujan Pambuccian, a Romanian member of parliament tried to make Romania into its own offshore haven.

And for advice on how to do it, the MP turned to Laszlo Kiss, an offshore registry agent who Romanian police recently arrested for money laundering and tax evasion connected to his offshore businesses. Pambuccian at the same time had some private business he consulted with Kiss about: he and fellow MP Metin Cerchez wanted to set up an offshore network for a transport business.

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A Reporter Forms an Offshore

By Mihai Munteanu

Reporters from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) set out to find how easy it is to set up an offshore company.

They imagined a company in a remote location with good privacy laws. They decided their imaginary company needed to have proxies for both the shareholders using bearer shares and for the director of the company.

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Delaware - The Onshore Offshore

Offshore tax havens bring to mind tropical islands or Alpine towns.  But the preferred location for organized crime figures and corrupt politicians worldwide is the US state of Delaware.

Last month, prosecutors for the Romanian Unit to Fight Organized Crime and Terrorism arrested an offshore registry agent named Laszlo Kiss for masterminding an embezzlement and laundering operation for executives of a Romanian oil services company. Kiss is the author of a book promoting his business – and outlining just how to take advantage of the tiny state of Delaware to avoid taxes and launder money.

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Selling Offshores in Ukraine

By Vlad Lavrov

Last September, two dozen people filed into a new glass and steel tower office building in Palladium City, not far from downtown Kyiv. They looked like accountants or executives entering the eighth-floor office of what seemed to be one of the few occupied suites in the building. An employee greeted them, collected $140 cash from each and ushered them into a large room that filled quickly.

A smartly dressed women in her 30s strode to the front.

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Solutions to the Problem

By Beth Kampschror

Solutions to shells

Anonymous shell companies are behind so many crimes and misdemeanors that eliminating them should probably be "a no-brainer," as a US district attorney recently put it.

Examples: suspected arms dealer Viktor Bout used at least a dozen American-registered anonymous shell companies to finance his operations. As much as $36 billion has been laundered through US-registered shell companies from the former Soviet Union, according to an American government report.

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