The Proxy Platform - Money Laundering through NZ

What  you are about to read has not been written by me - i am posting it here because it shows a trail of money laundering that is coming through NZ and may be used by NZ corporates and others to fleece this nation - while the National government cracks down on welfare and community spending the real abusers of the system continue to avoid taxes through devious means - I ask the queston - Is THIS THE TIP OF A VERY DEEP ICEBERG ?

After all here in NZzzz we don't really think these things would happen in our naiton - or is that a naievity that belongs in the past ?

THE PROXY PLATFORM

While governments and citizens of Eastern Europe were struggling with the recent financial crisis and trying to borrow money from international financial institutions, billions of euros circulated in the region in an illegal, parallel system that enriched organized crime figures and corrupt politicians.

The system is built on hundreds, maybe thousands, of ever-morphing phantom companies. They exist on paper only and appear to be run by scores of common people, who are, in fact, simply proxies. Many are unaware that their names appear in official documents as the human face of a company. Others are naïve or don’t care.

Crime lords and corrupt government bureaucrats use these paper companies run by proxies to launder illegal billions into usable wealth. The crimes they commit don’t come back to them because of the subterfuge and unwitting proxies are left alone to face the consequences of actions they never performed.
“These methods are used to launder funds in every kind of international crime—human, drug, and weapons trafficking, financial crimes like tax evasion, which has been a cause of the current euro crisis, and terrorist financing. The current system leaves the global financial system wide open for these kinds of crimes,” said Anthea Lawson, head of the Banks Campaign at Global Witness, an international anti-corruption organization.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE 

 Opening the Door: Proxy Platform Revealed

Reporters for the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) first learned about Tormex Ltd. through a court case in the tiny Republic of Moldova. The case, about a tire deal gone badly, provides insight into the people who were using the services of the Proxy Platform, a phantom set of interlocking companies used to launder money and hide ownership. READ MORE

THE PHANTOM ACCOUNTS  

In February of 2007, Tormex was registered in Auckland, New Zealand by the GT Group. The GT Group was a business registration firm based in that city and already well known to law enforcement as a company that specialized in setting up untraceable offshore companies, fronted by proxies. It helped organized crime, corrupt leaders and terrorists avoid detection, launder money and evade taxes. New Zealand authorities, in fact, closed GT Group, in June of 2011. It registered companies that were later connected to illegal arms trading between the North Korean government and Iran and in deals with Hezbollah, Mexican drug cartels, Russian organized crime groups and others.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE 

The Invisible Empire of the Diplomat

Bristoll Export Limited was one of the many phantom companies established by the Taylor family in New Zealand. It was owned by Midland New Zealand Limited, which was set up by Stepanov’s Midland Consult company. Bristoll Export Ltd was involved in the trans-border transfer of US$230 million stolen from the Russian tax authorities through a fraud perpetrated on UK-based Hermitage Capital Management. The infamous case involved the alleged torture death of Hermitage’s lawyer Sergei Magnitsky at the hands of Russian authorities. Key employees of the Russian tax authorities, heads of the FSB, the Russian security service, and Moscow police were allegedly involved in the Hermitage case. READ MORE 

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.

Through GT Group and other corporations, the Taylor family set up a vast enterprise that registered some 2,500 offshore companies. A number of these were used by criminal gangs including the Muslim militant group Hezbollah, Russian crime networks and the Mexico-based Sinaloa drug cartel. Offshore companies are often used as a way to mask the identity of owners, launder money or evade taxes. READ MORE

OCCRP Wins Daniel Pearl Global Investigative Journalism Award

Over the course of six months, OCCRP reporters investigated offshore tax havens including the U.S. state of Delaware, the Cayman Islands, Seychelles, New Zealand, Romania and Ukraine. The project, Offshore Crime Inc. included OCCRP reporters going undercover posing as businessmen looking to cheat on taxes with impunity. read more here