Untouchable millions stashed in Cook Islands

Subject: Untouchable millions stashed in Cook Islands Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:41 pm

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being hidden in the Cook Islands, beyond the reach of authorities, angry wives lol!

and litigants in civil lawsuits, a report says.

It includes millions held in a trust controlled by Texas Ponzi scheme fraudster and failed cricket financier R Allen Stanford, now serving a 110-year jail term.

Trust schemes in the Cooks have proven beyond the reach of authorities around the world. The tiny country has just 14,000 people in the islands and 58,000 expatriates in New Zealand.

In Paradise of Untouchable Assets, the Washington based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists says it has a cache of documents revealing the owners of about 700 Cook Islands trusts.

ICIJ senior writer Leslie Wayne said that as they examined the documents it was clear hundreds of wealthy people had stashed their money in the Cook Islands.

She described the place as a global pioneer in offshore asset-protection trusts, with laws devised to protect foreigners' assets from legal claims in their home countries.

She said the Cooks offered a different kind of secrecy to that of the Cayman Islands, Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands.

"The long arm of United States law does not reach there," she said.

"The Cooks generally disregard foreign court orders, making it easier to keep assets from creditors, or anyone else."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/9521691/Untouchable-millions-stashed-in-Cook-Island

Untouchable millions stashed in Cook Islands

Untouchable millions stashed in Cook Islands

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