Company operated on Jersey offering forgery and money laundering services for decades with impunity.

A huge new leak of tax haven documents has revealed an especially dirty part of the tax haven world, including forgery of documents, dummy accounts and the use of false client names. The leak consists of hundreds of thousands of pages of records of a Jersey offshore company called La Hougue (later Pantrust in Panama) that offered techniques for money laundering to its hand-picked clients.

The Jersey Offshore leak is the latest in a succession of major leaks that have exposed why tax havens like Jersey need to be regulated and closed down. Jersey Offshore’s special contribution is that the secret company records reveal detailed techniques used to hide money, dodge tax and evade government regulators. It also reveals thousands of secret money transfers, allowing the team of journalists to follow the money.

Jersey Offshore is unique because the sources of the leak are prepared to be named and front up publicly. They had been cheated by La Hougue, set out to fight it legally and along the way gained access to the company’s extremely secret records.

Jersey Offshore is also about the island of Jersey, which tolerated La Hougue for decades with no effective oversight. When the sources handed over the full La Hougue records to the Jersey authorities, expecting action on the criminality, the authorities declined to take action and then refused to return the evidence. Fortunately the sources had already scanned the documents they hand over and a multi-country team of investigative journalists has been studying what they reveal. Stories published by EIC and partners will be listed below.

We are aware that more stories could be buried in the leaked archive, so we are also ready to share the collection of leaked source documents to media and organizations doing investigative research in the public interest. Get in touch!