Open Corporates leak: two more offshore accounts in Argentine President Mauricio Macri's name.

[forest444]

Source: ambito.com

Just days after the record Panama Papers leak revealed the existence of a closed Bahamas account under Argentine President Mauricio Macri's name, a second such leak has located two more offshore accounts under his name.

According to Open Corporates - "the largest open database of companies in the world" according to its website - Mauricio Macri appears as founding director and vice president of Kagemusha SA, an offshore company established on May 11, 1981, in Panama. Kagemusha, like Fleg Trading (the Bahamas-based Macri family shell company uncovered in the Panama Papers leak), was established with his father Francisco Macri; but unlike Fleg Trading, which was closed in 2009, Kagemusha remains active.

The term Kagemusha is reminiscent of a 1980 film directed by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, which tells the story of a petty criminal who assumes the identity of a dying landlord in order to avoid prosecution and ultimately usurps the man's property. In Japan, Kagemusha is used to denote a "political decoy."

Open Corporates also listed Macri as director in another offshore company: Latium Investment, which was established in Uruguay (a country known for its bank secrecy laws) and lists Macri's cousin, Jorge Macri, as co-director. Jorge Macri, the Mayor of Vicente López (an upscale Buenos Aires suburb), also refused to comment. The law firm of Kuzniecky & Co., which was listed in the leak as having prepared the shell company for the Macris, denied having done so or that Macri and his cousin have been listed as directors.

A source interviewed by Argentine business daily Ámbito Financiero confirmed the Open Corporates leak, however, adding that the shell company was created "to buy property in Uruguay."

Read more: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.ambito.com/833875-otro-wiki-adelanta-conexiones-con-mas-sociedades-offshore&prev=search

---

Small wonder that, as Mayor of Buenos Aires, Macri covered up the February 2014 Iron Mountain warehouse fire - in which nine firemen and a paramedic died - just as he was preparing his presidential run.

Iron Mountain is one of the world's largest document warehousers, and has been investigated in numerous countries for helping facilitate corporate crime (including, of course, tax evasion and money laundering). A number of other such fires took place in Iron Mountain facilities around the same time in the U.S., Britain, and elsewhere in the world.

[NCjack]

1. Why no Americans being ID? /nt

[forest444]

2. Ah, the 64 (million) dollar question.

We know from the Panama Papers leak that there were over 200 Americans among the Mossack Fonseca clients. But niether they not the Open Corporate people are talking.

Rumor has it that there are several high-ranking politicos on the list, and that their handlers are busy twisting arms toi make sure their names are left out of this (I have an idea of who one of those might be: http://www.thenation.com/article/mitch-mcconnells-freighted-ties-shadowy-shipping-company/). Who's to say.

[JDPriestly]

3. For some reason, the outing of Macri's hidden wealth makes me think of the settling of

the Argentina debt crisis.

Paul Singer, claimed to have been the money behind the failed campaign of Marco Rubio (a rumor and I have no idea whether that is true), settled with Argentina on debts.


Argentina has agreed to a $4.65 billion cash payment to its main holdout creditors and will present the deal to Congress this week for a vote which would end 14 years of bitter legal battles and pave the way for its return to global credit markets.

. . . .

Hedge fund Elliott Management, run by billionaire Paul Singer, brought numerous lawsuits against Argentina.

The legal saga involved years of court battles, street protests in Buenos Aires, the seizure of an Argentine naval vessel, and increasingly distorted economic policies as the government tried to avoid settling with the holdout creditors who blocked them raising capital on the international markets.

. . . .

The other main holdout investors also included in the deal are Aurelius Capital Management, run by former Elliott alumni Mark Brodsky, as well as Davidson Kempner and Bracebridge Capital.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-argentina-debt-idUSKCN0W2249

I haven't really paid that much attention to this story. It really didn't interest me that much, but I am wondering whether Macri is the target in this leak. He replaced a government further to the left that, according to that article, refused to negotiate the payment of the debt. I'm wondering whether this leak is some sort of payback or warning to someone. This is a conspiracy theory and I admit it readily, but maybe someone smarter can tell me whether I am completely off the mark or maybe on it.

Even if this is somehow related, I would not be able to guess what interest in this matter would want to embarrass Macri in this way.

And ---- Macri may not be the reason for this leak.

It could be a leak due to a fit of conscience, a disgruntled employee of the law firm, an activist for fairness in tax matters and open economic information, an unhappy would-be heir or heiress who got omitted by this scheme, a government sick of the tax evaders, a lawyer who wanted the money that someone may have paid for this information or just a mistake on a computer by someone. There are so many possible explanations for this leak, and for some odd reason (I have no idea why because this has nothing to do with me.), I am more interested in the story behind the leak than in the leak itself.

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic. But what would move a person or persons to leak this information. Wouldn't they fear for their life and well being? This is a very strange thing to do.

It almost only makes sense if this is the result of some law enforcement action because who would be so crazy as to put their life on the line over something like this. If it was an individual, thank you. That is a tremendous sacrifice on your part.

[forest444]

5. I doubt any one individual was the target, given the wholesale nature of these leaks.

We're talking about 11 million documents from 214,000 shell companies involving at least as many individuals (I'd like to see the dollar figures, which, interestingly, seem to have been withheld).

Naturally, people who, like the Macri family, have been using offshore banking to evade taxes since at least 1981 as they have, would be more likely to show up in such leaks that an occasional offender. If you visit enough Bourbon Street whorehouses, you're bound to run into David Vitter. Right?

As far as Macri himself, this is someone who has gone out of his way to curry favor with the international powers-that-be. Paul Singer especially, of course; but also the neocon cabal that still wields so much influence even in the Obama White House.

The doctrinaire neocons impress easily, frankly. Macri can offer them practically nothing other than lip service (Argentina is a medium country, very domestically oriented, with no military to speak of, and of modest strategic value).

Singer, at least, really is getting something out of this: $3 billion for a $48 million bond purchase in 2008 (not 14 years ago, as the article states). Three other money laundries are getting $1.5 billion; Kenneth Dart (the Dixie Cup tax exile), close to a billion; and Italian banks and others (including the Opus Dei-controlled BNL), another billion.

Considering that holdouts are normally not given the time of day in courts (as their bond purchases are interpreted to have been made in bad faith - i.e. done so to sue for more later), and that many of these parties are criminal Caribbean money laundries besides, they really can't complain. Macri is the best thing that could have happened to them.

As to the motivation of the source of the leaks, your guess is as good as mine. I can tell you that Argentine politicians fear the local press much more than they do foreign leaks (or did, anyway) because the country has quite a tradition in investigative journalism, with many a racket having been exposed by the local press over the years. Their reach outside Argentina (and neighboring Uruguay) is limited, however.

This leak was just the tip of the iceberg. If anyone ever successfully hack into or leaks client lists and documents from Paul Singer's Cayman Islands laundry (NML) or Iron Mountain (see comment above), then we'd be talking turkey.

I suspect Macri would be a small fry indeed compared to some of the very famous political, corporate, and celebrity names that would pop up if that ever happened (ah, if wishes were horses).

[AtheistCrusader]

4. We're going to need some kind of rankings or scoreboard for this shit.

[forest444]

6. That's what I was thinking.

I find it curious that these data releases haven't included any dollar figures.

Did the leaked documents not include them? And if they did, why are the amounts being withheld from public viewing?

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Yeah, it's dissapointing the data didn't go full monty right up front, so we could all see it.

Like the Ashley Madison leaks.

That would have been better. As this is, I can assume some names still won't reach the light of day.

[Judi Lynn]

8. The Macri's naming one of their offshore accounts "Kagemusha" is a blatant mooning of the world!

Arrogant, as well as criminal.

The information in your post is truly explosive. I hope the people who set those fires in the Iron Mountain document warehouses will be exposed far earlier because of this new spotlight which could head in their direction at any point after this leak.

Your information is fantastic. Thank you, so much.

(The fact 10 good, brave emergency personnel were burned to death should be pursued seriously now, rather than continuing to be treated as an accident, which it clearly never was. The timing is conspicuous in that document warehouse fire.)

[forest444]

9. ROFL, Judi!

"Blatant mooning of the world" is probably the best metaphor I've ever read to describe their cavalier ways - to which I'd add "warts and all."



In all seriousness, things are really starting to get sticky for the Macri administration. Besides the leaks themselves (which confirm decades of reports of massive tax evasion and other corruption on the part of the Macri family), they now have a tragically bungled damage control attempt to deal with.

And by way of none other than the buck-toothed Laura Alonso (!), who had no better idea than to try to rationalize Macri's offshore accounts. This is the head of the Federal Anticorruption Office - the very individual tasked with making sure no government official does this very thing!

You could just hear the collective groans from Macri and his people (I think they're now calling her the "Argentine Sarah Palin" behind her back).