1 00:00:20,929 --> 00:00:25,804 This week, there have been a whole slew and deluge of stories 2 00:00:25,828 --> 00:00:29,124 coming out from the leak of 11 million documents 3 00:00:29,148 --> 00:00:33,572 from a Panamanian-based law firm called Mossack Fonseca. 4 00:00:33,596 --> 00:00:39,378 The release of these papers from Panama lifts the veil on a tiny piece 5 00:00:39,402 --> 00:00:41,640 of the secretive offshore world. 6 00:00:41,664 --> 00:00:46,972 We get an insight into how clients and banks and lawyers 7 00:00:46,996 --> 00:00:49,024 go to companies like Mossack Fonseca 8 00:00:49,048 --> 00:00:51,555 and say, "Okay, we want an anonymous company, 9 00:00:51,579 --> 00:00:52,971 can you give us one?" 10 00:00:52,995 --> 00:00:54,805 So you actually get to see the emails, 11 00:00:54,829 --> 00:00:56,792 you get to see the exchanges of messages, 12 00:00:56,816 --> 00:00:59,891 you get to see the mechanics of how this works, 13 00:00:59,915 --> 00:01:01,316 how this operates. 14 00:01:01,340 --> 00:01:05,393 Now, this has already started to have pretty immediate repercussions. 15 00:01:05,417 --> 00:01:08,018 The Prime Minister of Iceland has resigned. 16 00:01:08,042 --> 00:01:09,257 We've also had news 17 00:01:09,281 --> 00:01:14,324 that an ally of the brutal Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad 18 00:01:14,348 --> 00:01:16,903 has also got offshore companies. 19 00:01:16,927 --> 00:01:22,156 There's been allegations of a $2 billion money trail 20 00:01:22,180 --> 00:01:26,083 that leads back to President Vladimir Putin of Russia 21 00:01:26,107 --> 00:01:28,568 via his close childhood friend, 22 00:01:28,592 --> 00:01:30,820 who happens to be a top cellist. 23 00:01:30,844 --> 00:01:33,444 And there will be a lot of rich individuals out there 24 00:01:33,468 --> 00:01:37,786 and others who will be nervous about the next set of stories 25 00:01:37,810 --> 00:01:40,363 and the next set of leaked documents. 26 00:01:40,387 --> 00:01:44,573 Now, this sounds like the plot of a spy thriller 27 00:01:44,597 --> 00:01:46,260 or a John Grisham novel. 28 00:01:46,284 --> 00:01:50,300 It seems very distant from you, me, ordinary people. 29 00:01:50,324 --> 00:01:52,832 Why should we care about this? 30 00:01:52,856 --> 00:01:57,099 But the truth is that if rich and powerful individuals 31 00:01:57,123 --> 00:01:59,777 are able to keep their money offshore 32 00:01:59,801 --> 00:02:02,288 and not pay the taxes that they should, 33 00:02:02,312 --> 00:02:06,406 it means that there is less money for vital public services 34 00:02:06,430 --> 00:02:09,783 like healthcare, education, roads. 35 00:02:09,807 --> 00:02:12,128 And that affects all of us. 36 00:02:12,152 --> 00:02:14,868 Now, for my organization Global Witness, 37 00:02:14,892 --> 00:02:18,954 this exposé has been phenomenal. 38 00:02:18,978 --> 00:02:23,466 We have the world media and political leaders 39 00:02:23,490 --> 00:02:28,145 talking about how individuals can use offshore secrecy 40 00:02:28,169 --> 00:02:30,564 to hide and disguise their assets -- 41 00:02:30,588 --> 00:02:35,372 something we have been talking about and exposing for a decade. 42 00:02:35,396 --> 00:02:40,031 Now, I think a lot of people find this entire world baffling and confusing, 43 00:02:40,055 --> 00:02:44,520 and hard to understand how this sort of offshore world works. 44 00:02:44,544 --> 00:02:47,376 I like to think of it a bit like a Russian doll. 45 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:50,859 So you can have one company stacked inside another company, 46 00:02:50,883 --> 00:02:52,994 stacked inside another company, 47 00:02:53,018 --> 00:02:57,429 making it almost impossible to really understand 48 00:02:57,453 --> 00:02:59,680 who is behind these structures. 49 00:02:59,704 --> 00:03:02,617 It can be very difficult for law enforcement 50 00:03:02,641 --> 00:03:05,604 or tax authorities, journalists, civil society 51 00:03:05,628 --> 00:03:07,890 to really understand what's going on. 52 00:03:08,318 --> 00:03:09,755 I also think it's interesting 53 00:03:09,779 --> 00:03:12,986 that there's been less coverage of this issue in the United States. 54 00:03:13,010 --> 00:03:16,773 And that's perhaps because some prominent US people 55 00:03:16,797 --> 00:03:21,335 just haven't figured in this exposé, in this scandal. 56 00:03:21,359 --> 00:03:25,294 Now, that's not because there are no rich Americans 57 00:03:25,318 --> 00:03:28,128 who are stashing their assets offshore. 58 00:03:28,152 --> 00:03:31,974 It's just because of the way in which offshore works, 59 00:03:31,998 --> 00:03:35,488 Mossack Fonseca has fewer American clients. 60 00:03:35,512 --> 00:03:38,768 I think if we saw leaks from the Cayman Islands 61 00:03:38,792 --> 00:03:42,443 or even from Delaware or Wyoming or Nevada, 62 00:03:42,467 --> 00:03:48,259 you would see many more cases and examples linking back to Americans. 63 00:03:48,283 --> 00:03:54,201 In fact, in a number of US states you need less information, 64 00:03:54,225 --> 00:03:58,399 you need to provide less information to get a company 65 00:03:58,423 --> 00:04:01,216 than you do to get a library card. 66 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:07,022 That sort of secrecy in America has allowed employees of school districts 67 00:04:07,046 --> 00:04:08,952 to rip off schoolchildren. 68 00:04:08,976 --> 00:04:13,872 It has allowed scammers to rip off vulnerable investors. 69 00:04:14,452 --> 00:04:18,142 This is the sort of behavior that affects all of us. 70 00:04:18,166 --> 00:04:20,037 Now at Global Witness, 71 00:04:20,061 --> 00:04:23,322 we wanted to see what this actually looked like in practice. 72 00:04:23,346 --> 00:04:25,759 How does this actually work? 73 00:04:25,783 --> 00:04:26,958 So what we did 74 00:04:26,982 --> 00:04:33,219 is we sent in an undercover investigator to 13 Manhattan law firms. 75 00:04:33,763 --> 00:04:37,537 Our investigator posed as an African minister 76 00:04:37,561 --> 00:04:41,688 who wanted to move suspect funds into the United States 77 00:04:41,712 --> 00:04:44,851 to buy a house, a yacht, a jet. 78 00:04:45,288 --> 00:04:50,349 Now, what was truly shocking was that all but one of those lawyers 79 00:04:50,373 --> 00:04:54,966 provided our investigator with suggestions 80 00:04:54,990 --> 00:04:56,954 on how to move those suspect funds. 81 00:04:56,978 --> 00:04:58,790 These were all preliminary meetings, 82 00:04:58,814 --> 00:05:01,086 and none of the lawyers took us on as a client 83 00:05:01,110 --> 00:05:03,399 and of course no money moved hands, 84 00:05:03,423 --> 00:05:06,881 but it really shows the problem with the system. 85 00:05:06,905 --> 00:05:08,824 It's also important 86 00:05:08,848 --> 00:05:12,214 to not just think about this as individual cases. 87 00:05:12,238 --> 00:05:14,451 This is not just about an individual lawyer 88 00:05:14,475 --> 00:05:18,329 who's spoken to our undercover investigator and provided suggestions. 89 00:05:18,353 --> 00:05:21,208 It's not just about a particular senior politician 90 00:05:21,232 --> 00:05:22,861 who's been caught up in a scandal. 91 00:05:22,885 --> 00:05:25,941 This is about how a system works, 92 00:05:25,965 --> 00:05:31,908 that entrenches corruption, tax evasion, poverty and instability. 93 00:05:31,932 --> 00:05:33,747 And in order to tackle this, 94 00:05:33,771 --> 00:05:35,442 we need to change the game. 95 00:05:35,466 --> 00:05:37,988 We need to change the rules of the game 96 00:05:38,012 --> 00:05:40,004 to make this sort of behavior harder. 97 00:05:40,028 --> 00:05:42,972 This may seem like doom and gloom, 98 00:05:42,996 --> 00:05:44,917 like there's nothing we can do about it, 99 00:05:44,941 --> 00:05:46,571 like nothing has ever changed, 100 00:05:46,595 --> 00:05:49,931 like there will always be rich and powerful individuals. 101 00:05:49,955 --> 00:05:52,402 But as a natural optimist, 102 00:05:52,426 --> 00:05:55,904 I do see that we are starting to get some change. 103 00:05:55,928 --> 00:05:57,803 Over the last couple of years, 104 00:05:57,827 --> 00:06:01,495 we've seen a real push towards greater transparency 105 00:06:01,519 --> 00:06:03,353 when it comes to company ownership. 106 00:06:03,755 --> 00:06:06,092 This issue was put on the political agenda 107 00:06:06,116 --> 00:06:08,610 by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron 108 00:06:08,634 --> 00:06:13,394 at a big G8 Summit that was held in Northern Ireland in 2013. 109 00:06:13,872 --> 00:06:18,222 And since then, the European Union is going to be creating 110 00:06:18,246 --> 00:06:20,403 central registers at a national level 111 00:06:20,427 --> 00:06:23,834 of who really owns and controls companies across Europe. 112 00:06:23,858 --> 00:06:28,537 One of the things that is sad is that, actually, the US is lagging behind. 113 00:06:28,958 --> 00:06:31,658 There's bipartisan legislation that had been introduced 114 00:06:31,682 --> 00:06:33,585 in the House and the Senate, 115 00:06:33,609 --> 00:06:36,766 but it isn't making as much progress as we'd like to see. 116 00:06:36,790 --> 00:06:39,877 So we'd really want to see the Panama leaks, 117 00:06:39,901 --> 00:06:43,695 this huge peek into the offshore world, 118 00:06:43,719 --> 00:06:48,771 be used as a way of opening up in the US and around the world. 119 00:06:48,795 --> 00:06:53,585 For us at Global Witness, this is a moment for change. 120 00:06:53,950 --> 00:06:57,698 We need ordinary people to get angry 121 00:06:57,722 --> 00:07:00,975 at the way in which people can hide their identity 122 00:07:00,999 --> 00:07:02,912 behind secret companies. 123 00:07:02,936 --> 00:07:06,523 We need business leaders to stand up and say, 124 00:07:06,547 --> 00:07:09,831 "Secrecy like this is not good for business." 125 00:07:09,855 --> 00:07:14,235 We need political leaders to recognize the problem, 126 00:07:14,259 --> 00:07:19,266 and to commit to changing the law to open up this sort of secrecy. 127 00:07:19,639 --> 00:07:22,918 Together, we can end the secrecy 128 00:07:22,942 --> 00:07:25,999 that is currently allowing tax evasion, 129 00:07:26,023 --> 00:07:29,214 corruption, money laundering to flourish.