{"id":149276,"date":"2019-12-09T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=149276"},"modified":"2019-12-16T10:52:23","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T10:52:23","slug":"29leaks-inside-a-london-company-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/12\/29leaks-inside-a-london-company-mill\/","title":{"rendered":"#29LEAKS: Inside a London Company Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Credit: Svetlana Tiourina<\/p><\/div>\n

4 Dec 2019 – <\/em>What do a Swedish Hells Angels boss, an Iranian state oil company, the Italian mob, and a fake Gambian bank have in common? The answer: A company services firm called Formations House, hidden behind the doors of one of London\u2019s most exclusive addresses.<\/p>\n

For years, the handsome Edwardian terrace at 29 Harley Street was a front for a vast back-office operation run out of Pakistan that claims to have churned out some 400,000 companies for clients around the globe.<\/p>\n

A cache of the family-run company\u2019s internal records<\/a> obtained by the anti-secrecy group Distributed Denial of Secrets, and shared with OCCRP and other media outlets, provides unprecedented insight into Formations House\u2019s global reach, and the criminal activities of some of its clients around the world.<\/p>\n

The resulting project \u2014 dubbed #29Leaks, referencing the company\u2019s former address \u2014 provides insight into London\u2019s company services industry, which UK law enforcement officials admit<\/a> is regularly exploited by criminals. The stories also identify regulatory loopholes and failings that leave the global financial system vulnerable to fraud, money laundering, and corruption.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=v1VZrwkODgs<\/p>\n

Even as firms registered by Formations House got involved in high-profile scams around the world, UK authorities failed to take action. The leaked records span a ten-year period, from 2008 to 2018, during which time the founder of Formations House was investigated by British police for serious financial crimes and the UK\u2019s top anti-money laundering regulator warned the company that it could face prosecution for its failure to comply with regulations.<\/p>\n

But Formations House is still doing business today. Meanwhile, authorities have done nothing to disrupt the broader British company formation industry \u2014 in which negligent companies churn out thousands more<\/a>, and sell them to just about anyone.<\/p>\n

In one case, the leaked documents show, a Formations House client ran a car-trafficking ring that cost Slovenian and Croatian taxpayers millions<\/a>. In another, a fraudster banned from doing business in his native India skipped out on a construction deal in Serbia<\/a> before buying a fake Gambian bank from Formations House<\/p>\n

The documents also reveal the company\u2019s plans to set up next-generation, privately-run offshore zones in poor countries with weak institutions. A big selling point? They would be beyond the reach of domestic and international authorities.<\/p>\n

Through one of its spin-off companies, Formations House sold North Macedonia\u2019s government on an offshore zone that critics feared would become a \u201chaven for dirty money<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Gambia, the company\u2019s late founder, Nadeem Khan, penned a deal with a corrupt African dictator. Formations House went on to set up its own shadow corporate registration system and illicitly license hundreds of companies in Gambia, without the knowledge or approval of local authorities. Some of them have allegedly been used in multi-million-dollar fraud schemes.<\/p>\n

The company also sent money to Cameroon while trying to launch a cannabis plantation in a specially-licenced trade zone inside a rainforest, but local workers said they have yet to be paid.<\/p>\n

Reporters from more than 20 outlets in 18 countries found stories they deemed to be in the public interest. You can explore OCCRP and partner media stories by spinning the globe on the right.<\/p>\n

Stories:<\/h3>\n

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TO READ THE FULL REPORT, Go to Original \u2013 occrp.org<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

The <\/em>Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a global network of investigative journalists and a member of the <\/em>Global Investigative Journalism Network.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 Dec 2019 – What do a Swedish Hells Angels boss, an Iranian state oil company, the Italian mob, and a fake Gambian bank have in common? A company called Formations House at one of London\u2019s most exclusive addresses. For years it has been a front for a vast back-office operation run out of Pakistan that have churned out some 400,000 companies around the globe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":149277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242,51,55,60,146],"tags":[232,120,550,331,354,1678,378,651,234,109,287,639,126,921],"class_list":["post-149276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exposures","category-europe","category-capitalism","category-whistleblowing-surveillance","category-economics","tag-capitalism","tag-conflict","tag-corruption","tag-development","tag-economics","tag-investigative-journalism","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-uk","tag-violence","tag-whistleblowing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}