The Guardian/ICIJ offshore investigation has identified 'nominee' directors controlling thousands of companies across the world. But just how many are there?
The Guardian and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have been investigating the offshore industry and secrecy surrounding it, uncovering a network of individuals willing to appear on official records as directors of companies while acting only on the instructions of its real owners, who stay invisible and off-the-books.
The main story from Monday's Guardian sets out the position:
More than 21,500 companies have been identified using this group of 28 so-called nominee directors. The nominees play a key role in keeping secret hundreds of thousands of commercial transactions. They do so by selling their names for use on official company documents, using addresses in obscure locations all over the world.
This is not illegal under UK law, and sometimes nominee directors have a legitimate role. But our evidence suggests this particular group of directors only pretend to control the companies they put their names to.
The companies themselves are often registered anonymously offshore in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), but also in Ireland, New Zealand, Belize and the UK itself. More than a score of UK agencies sell offshore companies, several of whom also help supply sham directors.
The directors first came to light as a result of the Guardian's investigations into the British Virgin Islands, and it is not possible to get the company lists or totals published below using the official records made publicly available.
Having obtained for the first time total company counts for dozens of individuals, the Guardian then cross-checked the same names at other registries around the world (UK, Ireland and New Zealand) to examine the international nature of these activities.
It is possible some or all of the individuals named below have more companies in further countries, which do not make interfaces available to find directors' companies.
We've published the full table below, showing total numbers of current and former companies across four countries for 28 individuals acting as nominee directors.
If you've got any comments or thoughts on their activities, leave a comment on our main news story today, or (if you'd prefer to comment confidentially), email me at james.ball@guardian.co.uk.
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