Google – AFP, Jeremy Tordjman (AFP), 4 April 2013
 |
The cascade
of revelations shedding light on the world of offshore tax
havens began when
Gerard Ryle received a letter (AFP/File, Philippe
Desmazes)
|
WASHINGTON
— The cascade of WikiLeaks-style revelations shedding light on the often murky
world of offshore tax havens began when Gerard Ryle received a mysterious
letter in the post.
The
experienced investigative journalist had been busy trying to unravel the
details of a large financial fraud in his native Australia when the prospect of
an even bigger scoop landed on his doormat.
The letter
contained part of a hard drive with the details of 2.5 million digital files, a
treasure trove that would ultimately yield information on 120,000 offshore
companies and nearly 130,000 individuals.
Ryle, who
moved to Washington to head the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists (ICIJ) soon after receiving the hard drive, admits he was not
entirely sure what he was dealing with at first.
"My
instinct told me it was big but you do not know," Ryle told AFP. Technical
impediments also frustrated his early attempts to pore over the information he
had received.
"The
files were almost impossible to read, they kept crashing my computer,"
Ryle said. "I've seen a lot of names from all around the world; they were
people that meant nothing to me.
"I
just did what any reporter would do -- you just go on the Internet and you
Google them."
In his
capacity as head of the ICIJ, a non-governmental organization founded in 1997
to help co-ordinate the work of reporters seeking to uncover corruption, Ryle
set about mobilizing a worldwide army of journalists to help mine the rich seam
of information he had received.
"It's
always been on my mind to get some help from reporters all around the
world," Ryle said. "The ICIJ was the perfect vehicle."
The ICIJ
coordinated a 15-month long probe that involved 86 investigative journalists in
46 countries to compile a series of reports it began releasing around the world
this week, using a strategy similar to that used by WikiLeaks when it released
hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables in 2010.
So far, the
revelations have made waves in several countries, causing embarrassment to
French President Francois Hollande's former campaign treasurer Jean-Jacques
Augier, as well as the family of the president of Azerbaijan.
Ryle
cautioned, however, that many of the individuals brought to his attention by
the hard drive may not have broken any laws.
"What
you first realize is that you can't accuse people of doing something wrong
because you don't have the full story, you don't know what they've declared in
taxes," he noted.
"You
kept asking yourself: where's the story here? Is it illegal? Your instinct
tells you it's a story but you need to find it, you need to look for patterns,
for trends."
Recruiting
the services of foreign journalists to decipher the information was necessary
because of the vast amounts of detail in the hard drive, estimated as being 160
times larger than the cache released by WikiLeaks, totaling some 260 gigabytes
of data.
The ICIJ's
efforts were also assisted by an Australian software company that provided free
software to help make sense of the information in the files.
"I
approached the firm and said 'Don't ask me why I need it but can you give it to
me?'" Ryle recalled.
He also
acknowledged that the sheer scale of the global investigation went against the
instincts of many of those journalists involved.
"I
wanted to encourage collaboration among journalists, something that we,
investigative journalists, normally don't like to do. We like to work on our
own and keep our secrets," Ryle said.
Other
revelations are set to be released on April 15, while the ICIJ promises further
reports later this year.
"We're
pretty confident we have a lot more because it's so vast and it takes a long
time to understand," Ryle said, adding that he was not concerned about
whether the revelations ultimately lead to criminal prosecutions.
"It's
not our duty -- our duty is to report and to let other worry about that,"
he said. "Our job is to inform the public about something they didn't know
and what people or authorities do afterwards is up to them."
Related Articles:
The 'Offshore Leaks' data detectives - New
Leaks reveal secrets of the rich who hide cash offshore
The 'Offshore Leaks' data detectives - New
Leaks reveal secrets of the rich who hide cash offshore
 |
| Offshore Secrets |
No comments:
Post a Comment