Wednesday 18 May 2022 04:19 PM The US is number one for dictators, oligarchs and crooks to stash their dirty ... trends now
The United States has ranked first - and worst - in a global ranking for countries which provide financial secrecy to dictators, oligarchs, organized criminals and wealthy tax dodgers.
The US comfortably beat out perennial tax-dodge-enablers Switzerland into second place due to the relaxed attitudes towards financial crime in states such as Nevada and Delaware.
The Financial Secrecy Index 2022, released yesterday, ranks countries by combining how intensely each country's financial and legal system allows individuals to hide and launder money extracted from around the world with the volume of financial services the country provides to non-residents.
The US' secrecy ranking is not so far from the norm at 67 out of 100 (with 100 being total secrecy), but as it provides some 25 per cent of the world's financial services, it is deemed to be the world's number one financial secrecy provider by the Tax Justice Network, the charity which produces the Financial Secrecy Index.
Financial secrecy enables the corruption, crime and tax dodging that is commonly perceived to take place in other countries and permits wealthy countries to profit from it.
The ranking will come as an embarrassment to the Biden administration which put fighting dirty money, corruption and kleptocracy as the fourth pillar of its foreign policy.
Ranking first in the Financial Secrecy Index will come as an embarrassment to the Biden administration, which put fighting dirty money, corruption and kleptocracy as the fourth pillar of its foreign policy
Switzerland, long notorious for the secrecy of its banking sector that had long made it a favorite of African dictators to stash public money, came in second place
'I will lead efforts internationally to bring transparency to the global financial system, go after illicit tax havens, seize stolen assets, and make it more difficult for leaders who steal from their people to hide behind anonymous front companies,' Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs before taking office.
But during his tenure, the US has increased its supply of financial secrecy to the rest of the world by nearly a third, making it almost twice as large as that of Switzerland.
The US backsliding on financial transparency comes at a time when Western nations are attempting to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs that made their fortunes looting and pillaging the national wealth of Russia.
This act, prompted by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, is made a herculean task by the sort of secrecy provided by US states which do not require companies to name the individuals who own them.
Italian authorities have been investigating the ownership of gargantuan yacht The Scheherazde, moored in dock at Marina di Carrara near Pisa, over suspicions that it is ultimately owned by Putin.
Ownership of the yacht has been clouded in secrecy, with the Cayman Islands-registered ship appearing to be owned by a Marshall Islands-registered company, meaning that even specialist investigators cannot be sure who is the person behind all the companies that
