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  • ELISE WORTHINGTON: This is a story about a parallel universe,

  • where the super rich

  • hide eye-watering amounts of money around the world.

  • GERARD RYLE: We're talking about presidents,

  • we're talking about prime ministers,

  • we're talking about rock stars, we're talking about porn stars

  • and people that have been convicted of crimes all over the world.

  • Their methods are usually highly guarded secrets.

  • But, hidden in an elaborate paper-trail,

  • they're now exposed for all to see.

  • ANTHONY WATSON: It's a shell game.

  • They hide the assets, they hide the income,

  • they hide the real beneficial owners.

  • To unscramble these incredible structures that you find,

  • it takes a really long time.

  • The keepers of these secrets are lawyers and accountants,

  • who work through a global network of trusts and shell companies

  • based in tax havens around the world.

  • LAKSHMI KUMAR: Without checks, gatekeepers have carte blanche

  • and are able to ride roughshod over the financial landscape

  • with no questions really asked and no accountability.

  • They pay the fine, and then it's just business as usual.

  • JOHN CHEVIS: I think some of the best money's to be made

  • if you're willing to turn a blind eye to who you're dealing with

  • and where their money might've come from.

  • I think there's very good money to be made, sadly.

  • DEBRA LAPREVOTTE: You have a handful of people

  • who loot the resources of a country.

  • Imagine the good that could have been done with $5 billion.

  • The roads, the infrastructure, schools, medicine,

  • education, healthcare.

  • All of that could've been

  • and all of that was taken away by a handful of people.

  • The private fortunes of the rich, famous and sometimes infamous

  • are concealed through lucrative financial holdings

  • and expensive real estate,

  • and Australia has become a prime destination

  • for them to stash their cash.

  • PETER WHISH-WILSON: I think the outrage

  • that would be expressed by Australians

  • if they knew that corrupt money

  • was buying their local jewels in the crown

  • and competing against locals at auctions,

  • I think they'd be furious about that.

  • NATHAN LYNCH: In real terms, that means that your children or yourself

  • might be going to buy a property,

  • and, when they're at auction,

  • there could be a person there in a suit

  • looking very, very sharp and legitimate,

  • but they could be a proxy

  • acting for a foreign kleptocrat or a politically exposed person.

  • Tonight on Four Corners

  • we investigate how politicians, criminals and the super-wealthy

  • move millions through a parallel economy

  • open only to those who can afford it.

  • And we reveal how an Australian accountant made a fortune

  • helping high-risk clients keep their riches away from prying eyes.

  • Our investigation begins in Singapore.

  • This glittering island financial hub

  • is an ideal place to set up complex business structures.

  • PETER WHISH-WILSON: Their corporate tax rate of 17%

  • has always been traditionally much lower

  • than other foreign jurisdictions.

  • So, that's attractive to companies

  • that want to go set up business there and pay less tax.

  • And, of course, if you're going to go to the effort

  • of setting up a headquarter in a country like Singapore

  • and you're a big multinational firm

  • and you're involved in profit-shifting activities

  • and a whole range of other things

  • that are certainly immoral and unethical,

  • then what you're going to also demand from the Singapore government

  • is layers of regulations to hide your identity and what you're doing.

  • It's actually a recipe for setting themselves up for scandal.

  • For the last 40 years

  • Singapore has been home to a little-known business

  • run by an Australian accountant named Graeme Briggs.

  • He set up his company, Asiaciti, here in the 1980s.

  • (ELEVATOR DOOR DINGS)

  • Today, it's a global business with clients on every continent.

  • GERARD RYLE: It's one of the largest offshore service providers

  • in the world.

  • And it's actually run by an Australian man.

  • They have all sorts of legitimate clients,

  • big banking, big banks,

  • big accountancy firms.

  • Asiaciti essentially sets up offshore companies

  • for people who want privacy.

  • Asiaciti is part of a growing industry

  • of professional wealth managers

  • helping the super rich manage their cash.

  • LAKSHMI KUMAR: It's lawyers, accountants, investment advisors.

  • You know, so, anyone that helps with the private equity,

  • venture-capital fund, real-estate agents.

  • All of them are gatekeepers.

  • And when we use the term 'gatekeepers', it really...

  • ..is these are the individuals

  • that are meant to guard the financial system,

  • because they have the expertise,

  • they have the know-how to navigate the nitty-gritties

  • of what is otherwise a very complex system to navigate.

  • What we've found when we've looked into it

  • is that individual entities

  • that are providing these services,

  • for them in isolation

  • it's hugely profitable.

  • So, you know, there's the ongoing advice.

  • There's the fees of setting up these structures.

  • There's a trailing revenue model

  • because you're continually managing these structures.

  • So, for those individual businesses that are active in this space,

  • it's hugely profitable.

  • Asiaciti prides itself on trust and discretion,

  • keeping the confidential information of its high-profile clients secret.

  • Now an anonymous source has leaked millions of internal documents

  • from Asiaciti and 13 other offshore providers

  • to media around the world

  • through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

  • GERARD RYLE: It's interesting that we're seeing

  • somebody who no-one's ever heard of.

  • You're talking about Graeme Briggs -

  • an accountant, somebody who's gone to Singapore, built a business,

  • and now he's centre of what will be, I think,

  • a political storm around the world.

  • Graeme Briggs is a 75-year-old grandfather

  • with a taste for the finer things in life.

  • He owns a multimillion-dollar mansion

  • on a vineyard in the Mornington Peninsula.

  • Graham lives in Victoria. He collects art.

  • He likes fine wine, particularly Italian wine.

  • He also collects Japanese fountain pens.

  • So, he's somebody with expensive tastes.

  • But he also mixes with people from all over the world,

  • very wealthy, important clients,

  • but also some people who are very high public figures.

  • The leak reveals Graeme Briggs

  • amassed a $62-million fortune

  • that includes more than $10 million in real estate,

  • a $4-million rare-pen collection

  • and $400,000-worth of fine wine.

  • Like the fortunes of those he's managed,

  • much of Graeme Briggs's wealth

  • is held through a complex offshore company and trust structure.

  • One of the trends that's emerging

  • in the documents in the Pandora Papers

  • is the fact that this offshore world lobbies behind the scenes,

  • it lobbies governments to allow the offshore world to take place.

  • So, Graham was particularly involved in turning Samoa into a tax haven.

  • The island nation of Samoa is a tiny speck in the ocean

  • halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii.

  • Graeme Briggs was one of the first to realise Samoa's potential

  • over two decades ago.

  • He spruiked himself as an expert consultant to the government

  • on offshore finance.

  • He set up an Asiaciti office in the nation's capital,

  • just down the road from the regulator.

  • TO'OTO'OLEAAVA DR FANAAFI AIONO: He was one of the first

  • to bring that type of business here to Samoa.

  • And I understand that he did have a say

  • in advising on the original legislation.

  • I've met him once.

  • In fact, I met him during one of the reviews of Samoa

  • in accordance with the Asia Pacific Group on anti-money laundering.

  • One of their reviews of Samoa back in 2014,

  • that was when I first met Mr Graeme Briggs.

  • He seems very personable.

  • He's not very tall.

  • Short, curly hair. Grey. Aussie. (LAUGHS)

  • It may not look like a global finance hub,

  • but there's tens of thousands of international companies based here -

  • one for every three residents.

  • The genesis was...

  • ..I think it was trying to find other sources of income

  • that were legitimate and legal

  • for a small island nation with very limited natural resources.

  • That's basically the genesis of it.

  • It's a tax haven that's been criticised

  • for its lack of transparency

  • and has been blacklisted by the European Union since 2017.

  • In the good old days, when it was a bit more Wild West, so to speak,

  • there was no regulation around,

  • and, so, it was easier to incorporate a company,

  • and, as such, the risks for things going wrong

  • and things being used for untoward purposes

  • was probably higher in the early years of the industry.

  • ANTHONY WATSON: It's a tax haven,

  • which means it doesn't impose tax on a lot of income

  • earned by people in that jurisdiction.

  • And it was very popular for Australians because

  • before we had a regime which taxed people on their foreign income

  • if earned through a foreign entity.

  • So, if I put a foreign company in Samoa,

  • and that foreign company earned income outside Samoa,

  • it wasn't taxed in Samoa AND it wasn't taxed in Australia.

  • Hence the benefit of having a tax haven in the middle.

  • For those who consider these sorts of arrangements,

  • they're not clever or sexy or harmless.

  • I think the victims when people don't pay tax

  • is everyday Australians,

  • the millions of taxpayers

  • who do the right thing, who declare their income,

  • pay their employees and have fair competition against other business.

  • The leaked documents show Asiaciti kept a confidential list

  • of its highest-risk clients, known as PEPs.

  • JOHN CHEVIS: So, PEP is as an acronym

  • for Politically Exposed Persons,

  • and it's referring to people who held senior government positions.

  • They may be politicians, they may be heads of state-owned enterprises

  • or heads of government departments.

  • And they may be foreign or domestic.

  • The reason they are singled out and considered high-risk

  • is because people who are in those positions

  • have in the past availed themselves

  • of the opportunity to commit corruption offences.

  • The documents reveal

  • hundreds of millions of dollars of Asiaciti's clients' money

  • has been ploughed into the booming Sydney property market.

  • Two luxury apartments in this city tower

  • were purchased by a Sri Lankan, Thirukumar Nadesan,

  • whose wife is a member of the country's ruling Rajapaksa Family.

  • He is currently facing corruption allegations.

  • The ownership of the apartments was hidden using a shell company

  • registered in Samoa and managed by Asiaciti.

  • PETER WHISH-WILSON: Australia is seen

  • as an easy place to park your money

  • if you're a criminal, if you're corrupt,

  • if you want to launder money.

  • More Australians out there, more battlers

  • who are trying to buy their first home

  • are going to be competing in an increasingly unaffordable market

  • against potential billionaires or tycoons in foreign countries,

  • some of them involved in corruption.

  • In another secretive offshore set-up managed by Asiaciti,

  • a Singaporean company called Bright Ruby Resources

  • spent nearly $300 million on two office towers in Sydney's CBD

  • and bought Sydney's iconic Hilton Hotel

  • in 2015 for $442 million.

  • Documents in the leak reveal the six layers of companies and trusts

  • between Bright Ruby

  • and its ultimate owner, Chinese steel billionaire, Du Shuanghua -

  • one of Asiaciti's highest-risk clients.

  • PETER CAI: He really become quite famous in 2008

  • when he become the second-richest man in China

  • according to the Hurun List,

  • which is kind of similar to our AFR Rich List.

  • In fact, there was a bit of a story about, you know,

  • he fought off to become the richest man in China.

  • He actually, I think, persuaded the editor to change that

  • because in China is always not a great idea

  • to become the richest billionaire

  • because a lot of things tend to happen to them

  • after they top the rich list.

  • Controversy has dogged Du Shuanghua

  • since he admitted to a closed court in China in 2010

  • that he'd bribed a Rio Tinto executive millions of dollars.

  • He admitted to paying one of Rio Tinto employee

  • about nine million in US dollars as a bribe to secure some iron ore.

  • Were you surprised when he admitted to paying bribes

  • but then wasn't prosecuted?

  • In a way, I think...

  • ..you can almost see it as one of those American legal dramas -

  • you know, he'd become... agreed to become a key witness

  • in a way that he probably was granted immunity

  • from the prosecution

  • in that particular case.

  • Four Rio Tinto employees, including Australian Stern Hu,

  • were sentenced to years in prison over the scandal.

  • Du went unpunished and went on to make billions.

  • The leaked documents show

  • Du Shuanghua's history of bribery was recorded in Asiaciti's files

  • along with his political connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

  • That makes him a politically exposed person by definition,

  • by the anti-money-laundering standards.

  • I'm not surprised that someone like Mr Du can buy the Hilton Hotel

  • through a structure that perhaps hides the fact that he's behind it.

  • You have this Russian-dolls sort of arrangement

  • where opaque and offshore structures are used to conceal ownership.

  • And it becomes very difficult for an Australian bank, for instance,

  • to unwind that ownership structure

  • when we don't have things like a beneficial-ownership register

  • to show who are the ultimate people

  • sitting behind these corporate vehicles.

  • In this picturesque corner of North West Tasmania,

  • another Asiaciti client bought up farmland

  • using a secretive offshore trust and company structure.

  • ANTHONY WATSON: How the money came in

  • was that a Canadian executive had a fund in Bermuda.

  • The Bermudan fund advanced the money to a Singaporean company,

  • which acquired the Australian dairy farm.

  • But when you look at the ownership on paper,

  • the Singaporean company is owned by the trustees,

  • two trustees of two respective trusts in the Isle of Man.

  • Asiaciti files reveal the source of funds for the purchase

  • came from Canadian Stephen De Heinrich,

  • who was a director of international oil giant Addax Petroleum.

  • PROMO VOICEOVER: We are an international

  • oil and gas exploration and production company.

  • In 2007 two senior Addax executives

  • admitted to bribing a former Nigerian oil minister for lucrative contracts.

  • De Heinrich made a fortune after the company was sold for US$7 billion.

  • (BIRDS TWITTER, COWS LOW)

  • The Tasmanian farms were sold back to local owners this year

  • for nearly double the purchase price.

  • Does the Australian Government

  • really know who owns property in Australia?

  • No, probably not, and it's one of the advantages

  • of having opaque structures like companies.

  • They're both... Again, they give an air of legitimacy -

  • "That's owned by a foreign company, so it must be OK."

  • But then you get a string of companies.

  • And then you'll get companies who are owned by nominees,

  • and nominees aren't often declared.

  • Or there will be companies

  • who are controlled not by their shareholders but by their creditors.

  • And, so, it's hard to actually pick

  • where the control's actually coming from.

  • (BIRDS TWITTER)

  • Tasmanian Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson

  • sat on a recent senate inquiry into foreign ownership.

  • He says it raised serious questions

  • about the Foreign Investment Review Board's ability to properly monitor

  • the flow of money into Australian property.

  • PETER WHISH-WILSON: See, arguably,

  • an estimated billions of dollars flow into Australian real estate

  • that's dirty money.

  • And that money pushes up house prices.

  • It makes houses less affordable for your average Australian.

  • And it's certainly not good enough

  • that the government knows there are flaws in our legislation,

  • there are exemptions that need to be removed,

  • or loopholes - is probably a better word for it -

  • that need to be removed,

  • yet they drag their feet in doing this.

  • Now, what that means

  • is, in real terms, that means that, you know,

  • your children or yourself

  • might be going to buy a property,

  • and, when they're at auction,

  • there could be a person there in a suit

  • looking very, very sharp and legitimate,

  • but they could be a proxy

  • acting for a foreign kleptocrat or a politically exposed person.

  • Now, because there's no regulation

  • of any of the gatekeepers in that transaction chain,

  • that poses a huge risk to Australia.

  • And I think, you know, the outrage

  • that would be expressed by Australians

  • if they knew that corrupt money

  • was buying their local jewels in the crown

  • and competing against locals at auctions...

  • ..yeah, I think they'd be furious about that.

  • The secrets of companies like Asiaciti rarely become public

  • unless someone decides to take the massive risk

  • of leaking confidential documents.

  • GERARD RYLE: The source wanted two things.

  • First of all the source wanted anonymity.

  • I presume for safety reasons.

  • And the second thing is that I was told

  • that he wanted to make these documents available

  • to governments all over the world.

  • And this was the best way of doing it, by going to journalists.

  • Gerard Ryle has spent the last decade chasing the secrets of the super rich

  • through tax havens around the world.

  • I keep coming back to it has to have public interest.

  • We're not interested in someone's private affairs.

  • But when we're looking at these records,

  • we're not looking at private affairs,

  • we're looking at things that should be made public.

  • I think what it shows, really, is that there is a shadow economy,

  • a shadow world out there that we are not aware of,

  • and that this is a world that is enriching

  • the people who are already rich.

  • He's coordinating a team of more than 600 journalists

  • from international media partners, including Four Corners,

  • who have spent months analysing more than 11 million documents.

  • Asiaciti is just one of 14 service providers in the leak.

  • When you're looking at a secret world,

  • you obviously have to get information from that secret world

  • to really understand it.

  • I think all of the leaks we've had in the past,

  • they've only given us a small window into this world,

  • but here we have 14 separate windows.

  • And I think that's what's allowing this

  • to be different from anything we've done before,

  • because it's allowing this breadth of information.

  • We're able to see how the world really works,

  • how this parallel universe really works,

  • in a way we've never been able to before.

  • Inside the Pandora Papers

  • are files on politicians,

  • world leaders and former leaders

  • and their secret wealth.

  • Jordan's King Abdullah II,

  • who bought luxury homes

  • worth up to a US$100 million

  • through secret offshore companies.

  • Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis,

  • who secretly used shell companies to buy a French chateau.

  • And Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta,

  • whose family secretly owned offshore assets worth more than US$30 million.

  • We're talking about Myanmar generals.

  • We're talking about people associated with Robert Mugabe

  • over in Zimbabwe.

  • And we're also looking at some other African figures,

  • people that have been convicted or accused

  • of money laundering or even worse crimes.

  • (SIREN WAILS)

  • Some of Asiaciti's clients

  • have been on the radar of authorities for years.

  • In 2014

  • Asiaciti was instructed to freeze the assets

  • of one of its high-risk clients.

  • The order was obtained by the US Department of Justice.

  • FBI agent Debra LaPrevotte was chasing massive amounts of cash

  • plundered by a former Nigerian president.

  • DEBRA LAPREVOTTE: President Abacha died in 1998,

  • and it's alleged

  • that, during his presidency,

  • he stole, embezzled, extorted...

  • ..just shy of $5 billion.

  • So, in 2012, the FBI and the Department of Justice got together

  • and we started to investigate these funds.

  • And what we found is there was a network of individuals

  • that were not only helping President Abacha get his hands on these funds,

  • mostly in cash,

  • but then those funds had to be moved out of Nigeria.

  • In 2010

  • Asiaciti set up offshore trusts

  • for a long-time associate of the President,

  • Nigerian politician Abubakar Atiku Bagudu.

  • It was later alleged in court documents that the pair had:

  • Asiaciti kept Bagudu on as a client regardless.

  • Once, in 2013, when it became very public

  • that Mr Bagudu was listed in the US complaint,

  • they could have said, "You know what?

  • "There's enough here that causes us pause,

  • "so we're going to go ahead and close this account,"

  • or, you know, "request that you are no longer our customer."

  • That didn't happen.

  • The FBI is still hunting more than US$170 million

  • frozen in trust accounts linked to Bagudu.

  • Bagudu denies any wrongdoing and is contesting the freezing order.

  • It is extremely frustrating.

  • And, again, it comes back to these known havens, right?

  • Whether it was Vanuatu, Singapore, Caymans, Switzerland at the time.

  • You have a handful of people who loot the resources of a country,

  • whether it's oil-rich Nigeria, oil-rich South Sudan,

  • resource-rich Congo.

  • And, yet, frequently,

  • a great percentage of the population is living below the poverty level.

  • Imagine the good that could have been done with $5 billion

  • in Nigeria in the late '90s.

  • The roads, the infrastructure, schools, medicine,

  • education, healthcare.

  • All of that could've been

  • and all of that was taken away by a handful of people.

  • Russia is one of the world's most high-risk and high-reward

  • financial destinations.

  • It was a lucrative source of clients for Graeme Briggs and Asiaciti.

  • One of the people that Briggs cultivated was Herman Gref,

  • a former Putin minister

  • and head of a Russian state-owned bank

  • that was later sanctioned by the US and Australia.

  • JOHN CHEVIS: So, the meeting occurred in a cafe

  • in Moscow in February 2015

  • between Graeme Briggs, the head of Asiaciti,

  • and Herman Gref,

  • who was a senior, well, politically exposed person in Russia.

  • And they were meeting

  • to discuss the structure that Asiaciti had set up for Herman Gref

  • and the fact that he was going to use this structure

  • in his post-government role or his post-government life.

  • So, the fact

  • that the bank that Herman Gref is heading up is being sanctioned

  • I think is significant.

  • Asiaciti helped set up an offshore network for Herman Gref

  • and one of his old government colleagues,

  • Putin's former deputy chief of staff, Kirill Androsov.

  • He spoke to Four Corners from Singapore

  • where he's now a fund manager.

  • Yes. I met Graeme.

  • At the very beginning I met Graeme.

  • I think at the month of integration of the fund.

  • Because, for me, it was important

  • who will be the administrator of the fund

  • and what is the attitude of this company.

  • The fact that they're Russian isn't necessarily a red flag,

  • but the fact that they were Russian politically exposed persons

  • and that some of them

  • had had allegations of corruption around them.

  • Some of them were very closely linked to the Russian government,

  • senior levels of the Russian government.

  • And then seeing large volumes of money

  • being moved in a circuitous pattern -

  • that is a distinctive red flag.

  • (SIREN WHOOPS)

  • The leaked documents reveal that Kirill Androsov

  • received a mysterious US$25-million bonus payment

  • from a Russian businessman with rumoured links to organised crime.

  • Asiaciti failed to keep track of millions of dollars of transactions

  • in the complex Russian structures.

  • Money-laundering expert John Chevis has reviewed the documents.

  • It's worth noting that these weren't insignificant amounts of money.

  • We were talking about $25 million at a time

  • for some of these transactions.

  • There were the circuitous transactions

  • between these three... these three people.

  • Whether they were conducting those transactions themselves

  • or whether someone was conducting them on their behalf,

  • they didn't appear to have any legitimate economic reason

  • for some of these transactions that were occurring.

  • The transactions of Asiaciti's Russian clients

  • were later investigated by the Singaporean regulator,

  • which delivered a damning report.

  • Well, they found that Asiaciti's anti-money-laundering systems

  • were very lacking, they were lacking in many ways.

  • They suggested that the policies and processes weren't in place,

  • and that those policies and processes that WERE in place

  • weren't being followed properly.

  • Androsov categorically denied

  • that any of his commercial dealings are in any way improper or unlawful.

  • He told Four Corners he continues to work with Asiaciti.

  • As far as I know, they still have a licence.

  • And as long as they are licenced, they are liable to operate.

  • I don't know the details of this case and I don't know the substance.

  • We keep business in some of the aspects

  • and we stopped business in some of the other aspects,

  • but I don't think that it's connected with this case

  • that Monetary Authority of Singapore announced against of them.

  • Last year the Monetary Authority of Singapore

  • fined Asiaciti $1.1 million

  • for failing to adequately monitor its high-risk clients

  • and "multiple, and in some cases systemic, lapses"

  • in anti-money laundering controls.

  • You have to ask yourself, "Why is somebody in this business?

  • "Why is somebody running a trust company out of Singapore,

  • "where they've been found to be delinquent in their...

  • "..vigilance to fight anti-money laundering and terrorism financing?"

  • So, you know, I could only say that I'd have to question...

  • ..he knows what his company's doing -

  • I would want to know,

  • "Has anything changed since they were audited and fined?"

  • The fine was so minimal.

  • I mean, it's less than a slap on the wrist.

  • Revenue authorities around the world, the big revenue authorities,

  • are aware of the scale of what the professional enablers do

  • and the scope of their reach.

  • So, they formed various joint task forces

  • to try to combat hidden income, hidden assets

  • and the whole camouflaging of beneficial ownership

  • by the enablers.

  • Australian authorities

  • have been trying to track offshore tax evasion for years.

  • In 2006

  • the ATO launched the biggest tax-fraud investigation

  • in Australia's history.

  • It was dubbed Project Wickenby.

  • WILL DAY: So, Project Wickenby was, I guess,

  • the first time that we brought together a multi-agency focus

  • on offshore tax evasion.

  • We raised well over a billion dollars

  • in liabilities,

  • in tax that wasn't paid and additional penalties.

  • VANDA GOULD: My name is Vanda - V-A-N-D-A, Gould - G-O-U-L-D.

  • One of its targets was a Sydney accountant

  • who was a client of Asiaciti.

  • His name is Vanda Gould.

  • And I'm presently at Long Bay Corrective Centre, at the jail.

  • Vanda Gould spoke to Four Corners from prison.

  • He was arrested on tax-fraud charges in 2013.

  • I was at home. I was... I was...

  • ..I think doing some exercise on the exercise bike.

  • And, I mean, I was, you know...

  • And then we had all these Commonwealth Police came in

  • and sort of did a raid at the house.

  • Vanda Gould met Graeme Briggs in the mid-'80s

  • and began doing business with him in the early '90s.

  • I met Graeme Briggs and we got chatting.

  • I'm having a chat to him. It wasn't a very long call, this discussion.

  • And then subsequently

  • he took it upon himself to make contact with me.

  • You know, when you talk to him,

  • he's a genuinely decent sort of human being.

  • Asiaciti's Samoa office had come up with a lucrative new product.

  • It was pitched as a Samoan superannuation scheme.

  • Briggs wrote to Gould explaining how it worked.

  • "Western Samoa has no taxation treaty with Australia,"

  • therefore it offers "complete exemption

  • "from all forms of income tax"

  • and provides "absolute secrecy and confidentially."

  • Gould put his clients' money into Asiaciti's offshore super funds.

  • 'Cause, essentially, their office provided all the support staff.

  • So, they actually established the super fund.

  • They got the lawyers to actually prepare the deeds.

  • They got every transaction that was entered into.

  • They were, you know, integral to those transactions.

  • (BIRDS TWITTER)

  • Asiaciti's Samoan super scheme had a brilliant twist.

  • Clients were able to access their money before they retired

  • via loans from the super fund.

  • ANTHONY WATSON: Well, the temptation for tax, if you want to avoid it,

  • is to set up a Samoan fund,

  • have your employer settle some money on it,

  • and then the income of the Samoan fund,

  • the theory was it was not taxable in Australia.

  • So, the income of the fund can be earned tax-free in Samoa.

  • But if you want to get it back to Australia, though,

  • we did have rules, like all super funds,

  • that if you got a payment on death, disability,

  • a certain age being reached or retirement,

  • you were taxable on it.

  • So, the answer is don't get a payment for any of those reasons,

  • rather, get a loan.

  • Loans in any form of tax jurisdiction aren't taxable.

  • So, if I loan you money, you're not taxable on the amount I give you.

  • It's not income. It's not a gain.

  • You haven't benefited at all, you've just borrowed from me.

  • So, in this case, they simply...

  • ..the Samoan fund would loan the money

  • back to the Australian resident.

  • But the Tax Office had some questions about Samoan super schemes.

  • In 2010 it issued a public warning

  • saying the schemes were being used to conceal income or assets

  • and that so-called loans from them may be a sham.

  • WILL DAY: What we would do in those sorts of arrangements

  • is ask some questions -

  • "Well, if this is truly a commercial loan,"

  • for example,

  • "where are the documents that sit behind that loan?"

  • "What interest rates are being paid?"

  • "Show us where your repayments are going."

  • "What have you invested that in?"

  • And often, where these arrangements are purely non-commercial,

  • they're unable to answer those sorts of questions.

  • The taxpayer alert just is like a siren that says, "We're watching."

  • It didn't change the law.

  • The taxpayer alert just highlighted

  • that the Tax Office was aware

  • that certain people were doing certain things.

  • Gould's tax-fraud charges were eventually dropped,

  • but he was later jailed for perverting the course of justice

  • for coaching a witness to lie.

  • Gould's clients were ordered to pay back

  • more than $300 million to the ATO.

  • My job is to actually

  • help taxpayers get through the labyrinth of the Australian Tax Act

  • in the most effective way.

  • And if one of the most effective way means they reduce their taxes,

  • well...well, so...so be it.

  • I don't think there's any morals in it.

  • The leaked documents

  • show Graeme Briggs was questioned by Australian authorities

  • while they investigated Vanda Gould's Samoan operation.

  • Briggs was never charged or accused of criminal conduct.

  • Vanda Gould still supports him.

  • No, no, no, I mean, I don't to have any hard feelings against...

  • ..against, you know, Graeme.

  • But...you know, just watch this space.

  • God will ultimately vindicate me.

  • I think that the first thing to always bear in mind

  • is that most people do the right thing,

  • and there's nothing illegal with holding money offshore

  • provided that it's declared to the Tax Office,

  • and most people do do the right thing.

  • While Graeme Briggs has retired to his vineyard outside Melbourne,

  • Asiaciti continues to do business in tax havens around the world.

  • In a statement Asiaciti said:

  • The problem with the offshore world

  • is that it's up to the service providers to regulate themselves.

  • There are rules that are set down by governments,

  • but there's no one government overseeing it.

  • There's no sheriff here.

  • And, so, when you're living in this sort of parallel universe

  • where there is actually no government oversight to speak of,

  • it's extremely important that these firms follow the rules.

  • In 2016

  • the original Panama Papers leak

  • caused global outrage about offshore secrecy.

  • The federal government committed to a beneficial-ownership register,

  • which would force the true owners of corporate structures to be disclosed.

  • It still hasn't happened.

  • PETER WHISH-WILSON: We've been campaigning

  • for at least five years now

  • to get a public-beneficial-owners register.

  • Australians have a right to know

  • who is buying their land,

  • their sovereign wealth,

  • their future.

  • I'm not going to get into any arguments

  • about whether foreign investment is good or bad,

  • but, bloody hell, our laws should be good.

  • Accountants and lawyers

  • who do a lot of the set-up, a lot of these structures,

  • for illicit funds

  • aren't required to even provide any detail to regulators

  • around who is the ultimate beneficial owner

  • of this particular investment.

  • There's no real reason for that,

  • except for that these industries,

  • like the accounting profession and the legal profession,

  • have lobbied very ferociously in Canberra.

  • This reticence to set up a beneficial-ownership registry

  • therefore undermines the efforts of Australia's allies

  • to actually plug the problem and check the problem.

  • But what happens is,

  • if you allow the trend to continue

  • and you allow the country

  • to be...to essentially be a destination for illicit wealth

  • that buys up land, buys up real estate,

  • when you start becoming a destination

  • for criminal money and ill-gotten money,

  • there's the question of what other problems

  • are you bringing in with it as well?

  • Is it going to be just the money? Because it's never just the money.

  • It's estimated up to a tenth of the world's wealth

  • is parked in offshore financial centres,

  • costing governments hundreds of billions of dollars

  • in lost tax revenue each year.

  • There's increasing calls

  • for Australia to strengthen regulations

  • governing this parallel world.

  • NATHAN LYNCH: We are woefully behind the times.

  • So, of all the financial-action task-force members around the world

  • that haven't complied with all of the obligations

  • around gatekeeper professions -

  • that's the US, China

  • and then you're talking about countries like Madagascar -

  • and then on that list of countries you have Australia.

  • So, we've really dropped the ball in this area.

  • WILL DAY: Look, most lawyers, accountants and other professionals

  • do do the right thing.

  • It is relatively easy to be tempted

  • to get involved in offshore tax arrangements.

  • My message to them

  • is don't facilitate lying, cheating and stealing

  • from other Australians.

  • You will soon find yourself over your head in these arrangements.

  • They're not clever. They're not harmless.

  • They victimise the entire Australian society.

  • Captions by Red Bee Media

  • Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation

ELISE WORTHINGTON: This is a story about a parallel universe,

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逃稅(The Pandora Papers: How the world of offshore finance is still flourishing | Four Corners)

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    joey joey 發佈於 2021 年 10 月 11 日
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