There is a common element between three seemingly disparate international crime stories – 1) A flight out of N. Korea bound with 35 tons of explosives; 2) A money laundering scheme by Mexican drug lords; and 3) a Russian tax fraud scheme. All of these endeavors were funded through shell companies owned by Australian businessman Geoffrey Taylor and his sons:
Shell companies that is, corporations with no apparent operations, no apparent employees and no apparent physical assets are used by those who register them for a range of nefarious activities around the world.
Thanks to loose laws of incorporation in many jurisdictions it's easy for offenders to remain anonymous. And the entities can often be formed in less than 24 hours using online facilities.
Within this context, Taylor has led an astonishing double life.
Publicly, he has served as a company director and chairman of stock market listed companies both here and in New Zealand. Privately, his shell company structures are used by those behind them in a vast and covert game of hide-and-seek, through his clients' incorporation of thousands of entities, some of which later became involved in the international movement of oil, guns and money.
A single address, 369 Queen St. in Auckland, New Zealand, is home to thousands of front companies:
The address is on a tree-lined street that dates to colonial times but is now a main avenue through Auckland’s business district. The building just blocks from City Hall is of medium height and houses a number of organizations including GT Group on the 5th floor. Behind the door of this nondescript firm is the official home of more than 2,500 offshore companies.
Keronol Ltd, Melide Ltd, Tormex Ltd and Dorio Ltd, fronts for the Sinaloa drug cartel are among them. According to the Miami case, the four transferred about $40 million to an account in Wachovia Bank’s London office.
The company that operated the plane carrying smuggled weapons from North Korean can be also found here. So can the company that controls Laszlo Kiss’s business -- Lamark Tax Planning Consult.
All these offshore companies have one more element in common: the same sole shareholder. It's called VicAm Ltd and it is a company registered at 363 Queen Street next door in another GT Group office.
A 29 square mile plot of land in Western Australia was promoted by Taylor as an offshore tax haven:
Forty-one years ago, the owner, a sheep and wheat farmer called Leonard Casley, declared the land independent from the rest of Australia. Since then, Hutt River has issued its own fantasy passports, currency and stamps, featuring portraits of Casley and his wife Shirley. As head of the so-called principality, Casley is known formally as His Majesty Prince Leonard I of Hutt and he bestows knighthoods on loyal subjects, some of whom – like Taylor – claim to act as his diplomatic envoys.
From as early as 2004, Taylor... began promoting Hutt River as Australia's very own tax haven, drafting a set of commercial and banking laws for the make-believe nation. He offered to incorporate international business companies in Hutt River and to sell banking licenses and gambling rights to offshore internet companies that wished to base their virtual casinos, lotteries and sports betting operations there.
“Few people are aware of the existence of HRP Principality, but this independent sovereign state is the size of Honk Kong [sic],” read a press release issued by Taylor's Vanuatu-based GT Group. “Maximum tax for 20 years is fixed at only 100 Euros per annum … Best possible privacy is assured.”
One need not travel, however, to the “land down under” to find law-dodging shell companies. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, there is a small property which thousands of fake entities call home:
At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It's a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.
Neighbors say they see little activity there besides regular mail deliveries and a woman who steps outside for smoke breaks. Inside, however, the walls of the main room are covered floor to ceiling with numbered mailboxes labeled as corporate "suites." A bulky copy machine sits in the kitchen. In the living room, a woman in a headset answers calls and sorts bushels of mail.
A Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Avenue serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as "shell" companies, paper entities able to hide assets.
This is all without mentioning the 6,500 phony offices on N. Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware...