11 ms·

So, in a post-911 world, it's not even possible to categorically determine the owner of an international cargo ship due to the fact that mazes of opaque offshor

So, in a post-911 world, it's not even possible to categorically determine the owner of an international cargo ship due to the fact that mazes of opaque offshore (shell) company ownership is still not just possible and easy, but effectively "the norm". No invasion or bombing of any country is going to affect the facilitation of terrorist funding anywhere near the action of restricting trade for companies that have these byzantine ownership structures that shield the actual owners and profiteers from identification. Anything other than shutting this farcical, gaping, cargo-ship sized hole in "international business" is, purely and simply, only theatrical effort against terrorism. It's actually worse than that because it's appearing to do something; claiming that efforts are being made, whilst it continues unabated.

crististm 6y ago
It's not that simple. The sea is not 'owned' by any country and changing the existing regulations that work (for some form of 'work', but one that is stable in a large context) with something else that works better is an iterative process with a very long iteration time.
- dec0dedab0de 6y ago
  The sea is not 'owned' by any country But all the ports are. Come up with rules, and just dont let ships dock if the owners of the ship dont follow the rules Doesnt seem that tricky.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    But what exact rule would you implement, that would have an effect?
    - dec0dedab0de 6y ago
      Any dangerous material that is not stored or handled properly is immediately confiscated.
      - danarmak 6y ago
        And then sits in port for years until it blows up. Do remember that the bigger problem here wasn't a sea-unworthy ship that had to be impounded, but the fact the explosives were not safely stored or disposed of. That's not directly the fault of the ship's owner.
        throw0101a 6y ago
        > And then sits in port for years until it blows up. Or is sold to the highest bidder like like any other 'proceeds of crime' government auction.
      - 72deluxe 6y ago
        Doesn't that just move the problem from the boat to land?? I think that's precisely why the substance was there in Beirut anyway - it HAD been confiscated.
      - bregma 6y ago
        Like the War On Drugs. That has been an enormous success.
      - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
        That’s more or less what happened with the stuff in Beirut. It was confiscated and it was sitting there in the port for 6 years! Sitting there and not being handled properly...
      - hutzlibu 6y ago
        I meant regarding to this point from above "No invasion or bombing of any country is going to affect the facilitation of terrorist funding anywhere near the action of restricting trade for companies that have these byzantine ownership structures that shield the actual owners and profiteers from identification"
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  To use a quote template from The Office: Jo: Question 1: Can I trace ownership of the ship and the goods it's transporting? Dwight: It's complicated Jo: Yeah, but you see... it's not.
gumby 6y ago
What does 9-11 have to do with any of this?
- dewey 6y ago
  Patriot act and other laws / budgets put into place to keep taps on how money flows and dealings like that.
  - gumby 6y ago
    None of the participants in this story was American.
    - dewey 6y ago
      > and other laws Most of the intelligence and terrorism laws that were set in place specifically target non-americans and international surveillance so I don't really get your point.
      - gumby 6y ago
        I’m confused: a random boat shows up in a random port and some sort of supernatural “no sparrow fall” system is going to magically decide that somehow it’s of interest? The dots can’t even be connected backwards. There is literally no participant in the article who has any connection to the United States, not even the city involved. It’s likely given the dramatis personae that none of them may ever have set foot in the US in their lives. Yet somehow this is a matter of US law??? And how again is this somehow connected with some incident on the other side of the planet 20 years ago?
        dewey 6y ago
        There was a big shift in the intelligence community after 9/11 that is well documented and also reaches in all kinds of other areas (banking, travel records). If you only think the intelligence apparatus of the US only watches within the border of the country that's a bit naive. Especially after what we know about the Snowden leaks (International submarine cables tapped, dragnet like collection of communications in all countries,...). The fact that there's no Americans involved is irrelevant to the question in this case.
comprev 6y ago
As soon as they tighten regulations on shell companies and awful lot of wealthy people might have to start paying tax. Those people also happen to be highly influential in the world of global politics. Sitting in their ivory towers, a devastating explosion in a 3rd world country miles away won't change anything. It's a sad reflection of the world we live in today.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >awful lot of wealthy people might have to start paying tax I doubt they will. Most likely outcome is their tax consultants will have to get craftyer. Closing loopholes and tax havens is a continuous game of whack a mole where the authorities are always a step behind.
  - suby 6y ago
    If there is always another loophole and these attempts at closing them don't matter, they wouldn't collectively be spending billions of dollars in lobbying to keep the current status quo. It's pretty clear that legislation can make a substantial dent in the amount of revenue that can be collected via taxes.
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  Hey, don't mangle your metaphors! The ivory tower is full of tweed-wearing humanities and economics professors that nobody pays attention to. You must be thinking of some other building, full with fat cats. :P
  - comprev 6y ago
    Thank you for the correction, I had ivory in my head for some reason. Oh well, it still gets the point across with context :-)
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Sitting in their high castles then.
ivan1783 6y ago
This comment is hilarious - you are aware that there is no "post 911 world" in 90% of the world, right? Its just a blip in a history book. Pretty sure any regulation which was put in place in America after 911 has nothing to do with any of the countries which are involved in this story.
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  Are you saying "it can't happen here"? If that's the case, then I believe you're mistaken. This incident would be a good catalyst for any (90% or 10%) country to ensure their ports are more secure. (I'm aware of the breathlessness of the comment, and I was going to edit it tone it down a bit, but people had already started replying - I'll stand by it as-is.)
- ckastner 6y ago
  > you are aware that there is no "post 911 world" in 90% of the world, right? In the financial world, there definitely is. Because of how 9/11 was bankrolled, AML laws were severely tightened. Quoting the subject line of the relevant EU directive [1]: "[...] prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing" Which is the point that the grandparent was getting to. Edit: To be more specific, in today's financial world, technically, shell companies should be pointless because any bank transacting with such a company is required to know the beneficial owner, ie the natural person ultimately behind that company (no matter how many layers). [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32015L0849&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    If you have eight figure net worth or access to same from external sources it's not particularly difficult to start your own offshore bank. It's also pretty easy to buy a passport and create a fake identity. And not that much harder to create nominee directors who will never be vetted. And/or to create "legitimate" businesses with interests in art, property, and other high-value items - including in-game currencies - which can be used to transfer assets in creative ways. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-hmrc-tax-update https://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-hmrc-tax-up... And if you've been following the history of Wirecard you'll understand how easy it is to create a legitimate cover story for what appear to have been some rather less legitimate background operations. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/07/18/worlds-most-wanted-man-jan-marsalek-located-in-belarus-data-points-to-russian-intel-links/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/07/18/wor... And even if you go with a traditional bank, KYC is mostly box ticking. And some of the biggest banks have been directly implicated in money laundering, AML laws and all. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-documentary-re-examines-hsbcs-881-million-money-laundering-scandal-2018-02-21 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-documentary-re-exa...
dalbasal 6y ago
The nature of "corporation law" is at the heart of a lot of intractable issues, from tax policy to shipping to trade. Non Natural "persons," corporations and other legal entities, can own each other. They can be part owned. They can be owned, taxed and regulated in jurisdictions of their own choosing. Effectively, this allows groups (clumps of legal entities) to be structured such that tax liabilities, other liabilities, transparency requirements, and such are chosen a la carte. Transparency requirements of entity type A in jurisdiction X. Tax liabilities of entity type B in jurisdiction Y. etc. There has never been a reform of this system. It just keeps growing in complexity. At this point considering these "loopholes" is hopelessly naive. This kind of detailed & complex structure is very open to regulatory capture. Politicians, who tend to think in principles or ideals can't translate their opinions into legislative details effectively. Companies, who can, have a powerful position. Accountants and lawyers, who actually understand the implications of details, have a strong interest in the complexity itself. The whole thing is premised on ideas like "company A is a commercial company" or "company A is an American company." Those just aren't true. Company A is a legal entity, that forms part of a commercial company. The "group" is the company. Company A is also not american or any other nationality. Part of the group may be subjects to parts of american laws. As a whole though... Anti-terrorism is only the tip of the iceberg. Embargo avoidance. Tax avoidance. Liability avoidance. Labour law avoidance. For a startup analogy, consider the cliche "You set the price, I'll set the terms." You can fund or buy a company at any nominal "price," but the terms define what that price means. EG. price X with a 10X preference term makes price irrelevant in many circumstances. This is the game regulators and legislators are playing with corporation laws.
- fastball 6y ago
  I think the UN should agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate and anyone that doesn't implement and act on it gets sanctioned.
  - cpursley 6y ago
    Corporations don't pay taxes, the consumers of their products do via higher prices.
  - 6y ago
totetsu 6y ago
Check out this "black hole" of shell companies. (The Black Hole Business Model: The crash of Manx2 flight 7100) https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/the-black-hole-business-model-the-crash-of-manx2-flight-7100-662523e81456 https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/the-black-hole-business...
_heimdall 6y ago
Oil companies do this all the time. Just look at the crazy web of businesses and flags flown for the various companies evolved in the BP oil spill. Oil tankers regularly fly random counties' flags because they won't be boarded or inspected.
DebtDeflation 6y ago
To this day, no one knows how Epstein got his money or where most of it is. He'd create 3+ shell companies just to buy a house.
me_me_me 6y ago
> companies that have these byzantine ownership structures that shield the actual owners and profiteers from identification. The spice must flow my friend, the spice must flow no matter what.
neiman 6y ago
"post-911 world"? I think you mean a "post-73 world" (if we take an Israeli point of view) or a "post-2015 world" (if we take the French one). Your point of view seems to be very American centered.
- sumedh 6y ago
  Non American here, do you really believe whatever events happened to Israel or France compare to 9/11. The scale and destruction of 9/11 is on a whole different level.
  - neiman 6y ago
    9/11 was the biggest, you're right. But I dunno how is it possible to compare this with the long list of terror attacks Israel had between 1989-2008 or the emotional effect on the EU policies of the club terror attacks in Paris. This is bad and this is bad, and all of these had a major effect on how the world looks nowadays. I wouldn't put the focus only on 9/11.
    - sumedh 6y ago
      Why are you just focussing on Israel and France, why not look at India who has been facing terror attacks even before Israel even existed. Why not talk about the 1770 Indian famine where millions died because of British policies. I hope you got the point.
      - neiman 6y ago
        I'm not focusing, I gave some examples out of my general knowledge.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    Do you really believe 9/11 compares to the Yom Kippur war of '73? Lots of people dying on a single day vs. even more people dying in a few weeks. (Although most of the casualties weren't on the Israeli side.)
jimmytidey 6y ago
My theory is that secrecy jurisdictions, shell companies etc, are opaque to the legal system but transparent to intelligence agencies. Under that arrangement, politicians and the very rich still get a way to retain their privacy and avoid taxes, which I assume they are very effective at lobbying for, but the risk of terrorism is minimised.
- sukilot 6y ago
  Why would you the government care so much about one specific crime but not all the others?
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>it's not even possible to categorically determine the owner of an international cargo ship due to the fact that mazes of opaque offshore (shell) company ownership is still not just possible and easy, but effectively "the norm". Panama, Liberia, Uzbekistan, etc. etc. have better things to care about than keeping accurate paper trails about corporate ownership to make life easy for tax auditors in air conditioned first world offices. Unless you can somehow magically make them rich enough to solve all their big problems to the point where opaque chains of ownership seems worth caring about the symptom will persist.
- jakearmitage 6y ago
  I can't upvote you enough.
- joelkevinjones 6y ago
  If they can't keep track, they shouldn't be granting articles of incorporation to non-citizens.
cannabis_sam 6y ago
At least this problem will be somewhat reduced in the EU, with the UK throwing themselves out. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_trust_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_trust_law
shthed 6y ago
Reminds me of Accelerando: "My name is Alan Glashwiecz, of Smoot, Sedgwick Associates. Am I correct in thinking that you are the Manfred Macx who is a director of a company called, uh, agalmic dot holdings dot root dot one-eight-four dot ninety-seven dot A-for-able dot B-for-baker dot five, incorporated?" "Uh." Manfred blinks and rubs his eyes. "Hold on a moment." When the retinal patterns fade, he pulls on his glasses and powers them up. "Just a second now." Browsers and menus ricochet through his sleep-laden eyes. "Can you repeat the company name?" "Sure." Glashwiecz repeats himself patiently. He sounds as tired as Manfred feels. "Um." Manfred finds it, floating three tiers down an elaborate object hierarchy. It's flashing for attention. There's a priority interrupt, an incoming lawsuit that hasn't propagated up the inheritance tree yet. He prods at the object with a property browser. "I'm afraid I'm not a director of that company, Mr. Glashwiecz. I appear to be retained by it as a technical contractor with non-executive power, reporting to the president, but frankly, this is the first time I've ever heard of the company. However, I can tell you who's in charge if you want." "Yes?" The attorney sounds almost interested. Manfred figures it out; the guy's in New Jersey, it must be about three in the morning over there. Malice – revenge for waking him up – sharpens Manfred's voice. "The president of agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.AB5 is agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.201. The secretary is agalmic.holdings.root.184.D5, and the chair is agalmic.holdings.root.184.E8.FF. All the shares are owned by those companies in equal measure, and I can tell you that their regulations are written in Python. Have a nice day, now!" He thumps the bedside phone control and sits up, yawning, then pushes the do-not-disturb button before it can interrupt again. After a moment he stands up and stretches, then heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and figure out where the lawsuit originated and how a human being managed to get far enough through his web of robot companies to bug him. ... One of his e-mail accounts is halfway to the moon with automatic messages, companies with names like agalmic.holdings.root.8E.F0 screaming for the attention of their transitive director. Each of these companies – and there are currently more than sixteen thousand of them, although the herd is growing day by day – has three directors and is the director of three other companies. Each of them executes a script in a functional language Manfred invented; the directors tell the company what to do, and the instructions include orders to pass instructions on to their children. In effect, they are a flock of cellular automata, like the cells in Conway's Game of Life, only far more complex and powerful. http://www.accelerando.org/ http://www.accelerando.org/
x87678r 6y ago
Even in the USA Anonymous LLC States mean you dont know who is owning a truck parked outside the Whitehouse.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
Does seem like the rise of the Uber-wealthy/shipping-magnates that act independent of any specific nation has made the idea of states-as-actors kind of obsolete.
sandstrom 6y ago
The EU are making some progress on this: https://home.kpmg/us/en/home/insights/2020/01/tnf-eu-status-ultimate-beneficial-ownership-registers.html https://home.kpmg/us/en/home/insights/2020/01/tnf-eu-status-... https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/LSU/?uri=CELEX%3A32015L0849 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/LSU/?uri=CELEX%3A... Basically each country must track the “beneficial owner” of all companies, i.e. the natural person(s) controlling it. I’m sure there are more things to improve, but it’s the right direction.

crististm 6y ago

It's not that simple. The sea is not 'owned' by any country and changing the existing regulations that work (for some form of 'work', but one that is stable in a large context) with something else that works better is an iterative process with a very long iteration time.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago
The sea is not 'owned' by any country But all the ports are. Come up with rules, and just dont let ships dock if the owners of the ship dont follow the rules Doesnt seem that tricky.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  But what exact rule would you implement, that would have an effect?
  - dec0dedab0de 6y ago
    Any dangerous material that is not stored or handled properly is immediately confiscated.
    - danarmak 6y ago
      And then sits in port for years until it blows up. Do remember that the bigger problem here wasn't a sea-unworthy ship that had to be impounded, but the fact the explosives were not safely stored or disposed of. That's not directly the fault of the ship's owner.
      - throw0101a 6y ago
        > And then sits in port for years until it blows up. Or is sold to the highest bidder like like any other 'proceeds of crime' government auction.
    - 72deluxe 6y ago
      Doesn't that just move the problem from the boat to land?? I think that's precisely why the substance was there in Beirut anyway - it HAD been confiscated.
    - bregma 6y ago
      Like the War On Drugs. That has been an enormous success.
    - rad_gruchalski 6y ago
      That’s more or less what happened with the stuff in Beirut. It was confiscated and it was sitting there in the port for 6 years! Sitting there and not being handled properly...
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      I meant regarding to this point from above "No invasion or bombing of any country is going to affect the facilitation of terrorist funding anywhere near the action of restricting trade for companies that have these byzantine ownership structures that shield the actual owners and profiteers from identification"
BLKNSLVR 6y ago
To use a quote template from The Office: Jo: Question 1: Can I trace ownership of the ship and the goods it's transporting? Dwight: It's complicated Jo: Yeah, but you see... it's not.

gumby 6y ago

What does 9-11 have to do with any of this?

dewey 6y ago
Patriot act and other laws / budgets put into place to keep taps on how money flows and dealings like that.
- gumby 6y ago
  None of the participants in this story was American.
  - dewey 6y ago
    > and other laws Most of the intelligence and terrorism laws that were set in place specifically target non-americans and international surveillance so I don't really get your point.
    - gumby 6y ago
      I’m confused: a random boat shows up in a random port and some sort of supernatural “no sparrow fall” system is going to magically decide that somehow it’s of interest? The dots can’t even be connected backwards. There is literally no participant in the article who has any connection to the United States, not even the city involved. It’s likely given the dramatis personae that none of them may ever have set foot in the US in their lives. Yet somehow this is a matter of US law??? And how again is this somehow connected with some incident on the other side of the planet 20 years ago?
      - dewey 6y ago
        There was a big shift in the intelligence community after 9/11 that is well documented and also reaches in all kinds of other areas (banking, travel records). If you only think the intelligence apparatus of the US only watches within the border of the country that's a bit naive. Especially after what we know about the Snowden leaks (International submarine cables tapped, dragnet like collection of communications in all countries,...). The fact that there's no Americans involved is irrelevant to the question in this case.

comprev 6y ago

As soon as they tighten regulations on shell companies and awful lot of wealthy people might have to start paying tax. Those people also happen to be highly influential in the world of global politics. Sitting in their ivory towers, a devastating explosion in a 3rd world country miles away won't change anything. It's a sad reflection of the world we live in today.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>awful lot of wealthy people might have to start paying tax I doubt they will. Most likely outcome is their tax consultants will have to get craftyer. Closing loopholes and tax havens is a continuous game of whack a mole where the authorities are always a step behind.
- suby 6y ago
  If there is always another loophole and these attempts at closing them don't matter, they wouldn't collectively be spending billions of dollars in lobbying to keep the current status quo. It's pretty clear that legislation can make a substantial dent in the amount of revenue that can be collected via taxes.
black_puppydog 6y ago
Hey, don't mangle your metaphors! The ivory tower is full of tweed-wearing humanities and economics professors that nobody pays attention to. You must be thinking of some other building, full with fat cats. :P
- comprev 6y ago
  Thank you for the correction, I had ivory in my head for some reason. Oh well, it still gets the point across with context :-)
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  Sitting in their high castles then.

ivan1783 6y ago

This comment is hilarious - you are aware that there is no "post 911 world" in 90% of the world, right? Its just a blip in a history book. Pretty sure any regulation which was put in place in America after 911 has nothing to do with any of the countries which are involved in this story.

BLKNSLVR 6y ago
Are you saying "it can't happen here"? If that's the case, then I believe you're mistaken. This incident would be a good catalyst for any (90% or 10%) country to ensure their ports are more secure. (I'm aware of the breathlessness of the comment, and I was going to edit it tone it down a bit, but people had already started replying - I'll stand by it as-is.)
ckastner 6y ago
> you are aware that there is no "post 911 world" in 90% of the world, right? In the financial world, there definitely is. Because of how 9/11 was bankrolled, AML laws were severely tightened. Quoting the subject line of the relevant EU directive [1]: "[...] prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing" Which is the point that the grandparent was getting to. Edit: To be more specific, in today's financial world, technically, shell companies should be pointless because any bank transacting with such a company is required to know the beneficial owner, ie the natural person ultimately behind that company (no matter how many layers). [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32015L0849&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  If you have eight figure net worth or access to same from external sources it's not particularly difficult to start your own offshore bank. It's also pretty easy to buy a passport and create a fake identity. And not that much harder to create nominee directors who will never be vetted. And/or to create "legitimate" businesses with interests in art, property, and other high-value items - including in-game currencies - which can be used to transfer assets in creative ways. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-hmrc-tax-update https://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-hmrc-tax-up... And if you've been following the history of Wirecard you'll understand how easy it is to create a legitimate cover story for what appear to have been some rather less legitimate background operations. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/07/18/worlds-most-wanted-man-jan-marsalek-located-in-belarus-data-points-to-russian-intel-links/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/07/18/wor... And even if you go with a traditional bank, KYC is mostly box ticking. And some of the biggest banks have been directly implicated in money laundering, AML laws and all. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-documentary-re-examines-hsbcs-881-million-money-laundering-scandal-2018-02-21 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-documentary-re-exa...

dalbasal 6y ago

The nature of "corporation law" is at the heart of a lot of intractable issues, from tax policy to shipping to trade. Non Natural "persons," corporations and other legal entities, can own each other. They can be part owned. They can be owned, taxed and regulated in jurisdictions of their own choosing. Effectively, this allows groups (clumps of legal entities) to be structured such that tax liabilities, other liabilities, transparency requirements, and such are chosen a la carte. Transparency requirements of entity type A in jurisdiction X. Tax liabilities of entity type B in jurisdiction Y. etc. There has never been a reform of this system. It just keeps growing in complexity. At this point considering these "loopholes" is hopelessly naive. This kind of detailed & complex structure is very open to regulatory capture. Politicians, who tend to think in principles or ideals can't translate their opinions into legislative details effectively. Companies, who can, have a powerful position. Accountants and lawyers, who actually understand the implications of details, have a strong interest in the complexity itself. The whole thing is premised on ideas like "company A is a commercial company" or "company A is an American company." Those just aren't true. Company A is a legal entity, that forms part of a commercial company. The "group" is the company. Company A is also not american or any other nationality. Part of the group may be subjects to parts of american laws. As a whole though... Anti-terrorism is only the tip of the iceberg. Embargo avoidance. Tax avoidance. Liability avoidance. Labour law avoidance. For a startup analogy, consider the cliche "You set the price, I'll set the terms." You can fund or buy a company at any nominal "price," but the terms define what that price means. EG. price X with a 10X preference term makes price irrelevant in many circumstances. This is the game regulators and legislators are playing with corporation laws.

fastball 6y ago
I think the UN should agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate and anyone that doesn't implement and act on it gets sanctioned.
- cpursley 6y ago
  Corporations don't pay taxes, the consumers of their products do via higher prices.
- 6y ago

totetsu 6y ago

Check out this "black hole" of shell companies. (The Black Hole Business Model: The crash of Manx2 flight 7100) https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/the-black-hole-business-model-the-crash-of-manx2-flight-7100-662523e81456 https://medium.com/@admiralcloudberg/the-black-hole-business...

_heimdall 6y ago

Oil companies do this all the time. Just look at the crazy web of businesses and flags flown for the various companies evolved in the BP oil spill. Oil tankers regularly fly random counties' flags because they won't be boarded or inspected.

DebtDeflation 6y ago

To this day, no one knows how Epstein got his money or where most of it is. He'd create 3+ shell companies just to buy a house.

me_me_me 6y ago

> companies that have these byzantine ownership structures that shield the actual owners and profiteers from identification. The spice must flow my friend, the spice must flow no matter what.

neiman 6y ago

"post-911 world"? I think you mean a "post-73 world" (if we take an Israeli point of view) or a "post-2015 world" (if we take the French one). Your point of view seems to be very American centered.

sumedh 6y ago
Non American here, do you really believe whatever events happened to Israel or France compare to 9/11. The scale and destruction of 9/11 is on a whole different level.
- neiman 6y ago
  9/11 was the biggest, you're right. But I dunno how is it possible to compare this with the long list of terror attacks Israel had between 1989-2008 or the emotional effect on the EU policies of the club terror attacks in Paris. This is bad and this is bad, and all of these had a major effect on how the world looks nowadays. I wouldn't put the focus only on 9/11.
  - sumedh 6y ago
    Why are you just focussing on Israel and France, why not look at India who has been facing terror attacks even before Israel even existed. Why not talk about the 1770 Indian famine where millions died because of British policies. I hope you got the point.
    - neiman 6y ago
      I'm not focusing, I gave some examples out of my general knowledge.
- yorwba 6y ago
  Do you really believe 9/11 compares to the Yom Kippur war of '73? Lots of people dying on a single day vs. even more people dying in a few weeks. (Although most of the casualties weren't on the Israeli side.)

jimmytidey 6y ago

My theory is that secrecy jurisdictions, shell companies etc, are opaque to the legal system but transparent to intelligence agencies. Under that arrangement, politicians and the very rich still get a way to retain their privacy and avoid taxes, which I assume they are very effective at lobbying for, but the risk of terrorism is minimised.

sukilot 6y ago
Why would you the government care so much about one specific crime but not all the others?

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>it's not even possible to categorically determine the owner of an international cargo ship due to the fact that mazes of opaque offshore (shell) company ownership is still not just possible and easy, but effectively "the norm". Panama, Liberia, Uzbekistan, etc. etc. have better things to care about than keeping accurate paper trails about corporate ownership to make life easy for tax auditors in air conditioned first world offices. Unless you can somehow magically make them rich enough to solve all their big problems to the point where opaque chains of ownership seems worth caring about the symptom will persist.

jakearmitage 6y ago
I can't upvote you enough.
joelkevinjones 6y ago
If they can't keep track, they shouldn't be granting articles of incorporation to non-citizens.

cannabis_sam 6y ago

At least this problem will be somewhat reduced in the EU, with the UK throwing themselves out. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_trust_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_trust_law

shthed 6y ago

Reminds me of Accelerando: "My name is Alan Glashwiecz, of Smoot, Sedgwick Associates. Am I correct in thinking that you are the Manfred Macx who is a director of a company called, uh, agalmic dot holdings dot root dot one-eight-four dot ninety-seven dot A-for-able dot B-for-baker dot five, incorporated?" "Uh." Manfred blinks and rubs his eyes. "Hold on a moment." When the retinal patterns fade, he pulls on his glasses and powers them up. "Just a second now." Browsers and menus ricochet through his sleep-laden eyes. "Can you repeat the company name?" "Sure." Glashwiecz repeats himself patiently. He sounds as tired as Manfred feels. "Um." Manfred finds it, floating three tiers down an elaborate object hierarchy. It's flashing for attention. There's a priority interrupt, an incoming lawsuit that hasn't propagated up the inheritance tree yet. He prods at the object with a property browser. "I'm afraid I'm not a director of that company, Mr. Glashwiecz. I appear to be retained by it as a technical contractor with non-executive power, reporting to the president, but frankly, this is the first time I've ever heard of the company. However, I can tell you who's in charge if you want." "Yes?" The attorney sounds almost interested. Manfred figures it out; the guy's in New Jersey, it must be about three in the morning over there. Malice – revenge for waking him up – sharpens Manfred's voice. "The president of agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.AB5 is agalmic.holdings.root.184.97.201. The secretary is agalmic.holdings.root.184.D5, and the chair is agalmic.holdings.root.184.E8.FF. All the shares are owned by those companies in equal measure, and I can tell you that their regulations are written in Python. Have a nice day, now!" He thumps the bedside phone control and sits up, yawning, then pushes the do-not-disturb button before it can interrupt again. After a moment he stands up and stretches, then heads to the bathroom to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and figure out where the lawsuit originated and how a human being managed to get far enough through his web of robot companies to bug him. ... One of his e-mail accounts is halfway to the moon with automatic messages, companies with names like agalmic.holdings.root.8E.F0 screaming for the attention of their transitive director. Each of these companies – and there are currently more than sixteen thousand of them, although the herd is growing day by day – has three directors and is the director of three other companies. Each of them executes a script in a functional language Manfred invented; the directors tell the company what to do, and the instructions include orders to pass instructions on to their children. In effect, they are a flock of cellular automata, like the cells in Conway's Game of Life, only far more complex and powerful. http://www.accelerando.org/ http://www.accelerando.org/

x87678r 6y ago

Even in the USA Anonymous LLC States mean you dont know who is owning a truck parked outside the Whitehouse.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

Does seem like the rise of the Uber-wealthy/shipping-magnates that act independent of any specific nation has made the idea of states-as-actors kind of obsolete.

sandstrom 6y ago

The EU are making some progress on this: https://home.kpmg/us/en/home/insights/2020/01/tnf-eu-status-ultimate-beneficial-ownership-registers.html https://home.kpmg/us/en/home/insights/2020/01/tnf-eu-status-... https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/LSU/?uri=CELEX%3A32015L0849 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/LSU/?uri=CELEX%3A... Basically each country must track the “beneficial owner” of all companies, i.e. the natural person(s) controlling it. I’m sure there are more things to improve, but it’s the right direction.