Despite the ads of the G7 and measures sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for fifteen years, tax havens thrive in the world. They house colossal fortunes belonging to tax fraudsters, drug traffickers, mafia, corrupt dictators, oligarchs … The economist Gabriel Zucman estimates the amount of assets hidden at 8,700 billion dollars [about 8,250 billion euros]. These are pharaonic sums, which escape states, robbed and indebted, and which must face expenses related to health, education, climate change …
These delinquents benefit from these money masses which they whiten and invest in the economy without ever appearing. They buy yachts, private jets, luxurious villas. Nothing is in their name. They have recourse to ecrans and trusts that serve as a screen and prevent the identification of their assets.
Europe has traditionally occupied a privileged position, offering multiple offshore places such as Cyprus, Malta, the Anglo-Norman Islands, Gibraltar … It also benefits from the know-how of bankers and trustees of Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein… The latter manage accounts and assets open in the name of fictitious companies. Only the banker and the fund manager know the “economic beneficiary” of the accounts.
concern for financial transparency
It is precisely to overcome this that, in a legitimate and necessary concern for financial transparency, the European Parliament and the European Union Council adopted in 2018 a directive creating, in each Member State, a centralized register of These accounts and their effective beneficiaries: bankers now have the obligation to declare the real beneficiaries to a central authority. It is a primary advance. Centralization means a decline in banking secrecy and allows authorities to exercise real control.
The directive went further, because it opened access to the public, “in order to allow increased control of information by civil society, in particular the press and civil society organizations”, believing that everyone is concerned by the fight against money laundering. MO12345LEMONDE, in partnership with sixteen international media, was able to carry out the analysis of the Luxembourg register and publish the results in February 2021 in the operation called OpenLUX. The press had noted the prosperity of dirty money in Luxembourg and denounced flaws in the collection of the information appearing in the register, these being sometimes inaccurate and plot.
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