Details from the now infamous “Panama Papers” released by leaked documents obtained by the International Consortium of Journalists, continue to be exposed, with the report: the ‘Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption,’ putting three Caribbean nations in the midst of the scandal.
The disclosures found inside leaked files from the Panama law firm of Mossack Fonseca puts the Caribbean nations of the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas and St. Kitts & Nevis in the middle of the scandalous report.
The BVI is especially featured as a hot bed of activity for Mossack Fonseca and some of their very high profiled clients.
Financial Consultant Schniedman Warner, told WINN FM that “The nature of the type of alleged activity is such that it would be nigh impossible for any of the over 180 nations of the world not to get mentioned after all. The St Kitts-Nevis passport is owned by thousands of persons who are not born in or have no direct blood relationship to St Kitts and so it’s quite possible that persons with multiple nationalities of which St Kitts and Nevis happens to be one, may be in involved in some of the alleged activities referred to in the so called Panama Papers”
While Malchus Irvin Boncamper, an accountant on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts & Nevis, pleaded guilty in a U.S. court in 2011 and was sentenced to eight years in United States Federal Prison for his part in a massive fraud scheme on the island. Boncamper admitted to conspiring to launder the proceeds of the fraud scheme through bank accounts in St. Kitts and elsewhere while acquiring four insurance companies for the scheme in St. Kitts and Nevis (Commercial Acceptance Indemnity Ltd., United Re-insurance Group Ltd., Polaris International Ltd., and Brentwood Re Ltd.) He also admitted to creating financial statements for the companies listing assets he knew were worthless, including bonds purportedly guaranteed by a Swiss bank that was fictitious. According to the Panama Papers, once Mossack Fonseca learned of Boncamper’s criminal conviction, they took “quick action” by replacing Boncamper as director of the companies and backdating “the records in a way that made it appear the changes had taken place, in some cases, a decade earlier.”
Julian Willock is the Chairman of Advance Marketing & Professional Services a Political and Communications consultancy firm in the British Virgin Islands. His company is the publisher of Virgin Islands News Online (VINO).
The firm has clients in Trinidad & Tobago, St. Kitts & Nevis, Untied States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Willock spoke to Marie Dejaskey of the Guardian Newspaper and the BBC on the involvement of the BVI offshore sector in the Panama Paper.