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Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

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Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#221

Post by microtherion »

thinkloop wrote: post #107
gxqoz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent piece in The Guardian argues that South Dakota and other US states are actually becoming the go-to place to store anonymously your illicit cash and make sure that your heirs can inherit it without taxes forever: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/the-great-amer... Partly because the US has compelled other countries to provide more transparency without joining that transparency organization itself.…

> forcing foreign financial institutions to tell the US government about any American-owned assets on their books This is another interesting part. How can the US "force" a sophisticated wealthy sovereign nation that culturally and morally values banking privacy (not only for the profits), like Switzerland? It cannot be understated how much power, control and ownership the US has of the world financial system. If Swi…

As a Swiss, in a way it was sobering to see one of our dominant industries brought to heel so quickly. On the other hand, it was very satisfying to see those banks, who for decades had hid behind their hand tailored secrecy laws to do business with Nazis, dictators, and drug dealers, and were domestically untouchable, finally clean up their acts.

As for "culturally and morally values privacy", I would find that a lot easier to believe if those privacy advocates had equally lobbied for the privacy of salary statements for the employed. But, hey, someone has to keep paying taxes, if the rich don't.

Now, deprived of other unsavory sources of wealth, Swiss Banks are eagerly dabbling in cryptocurrencies.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#222

Post by [deleted] »

seibelj wrote: post #185
tossAfterUsing wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "deserved taxes", what precisely is the reasoning behind this deservedness? it seems to me that there's no reasonable way to lay claim to the work product of another person without being a total jerk... maybe i'm mistaken.

It's mind blowing to me that people get angry about moving wealth to a lower tax country like Cayman, but are totally milquetoast about moving someplace within the same country that has the same effect of lowering one's effective taxation. If you are worked up about this Cayman thing, then you should be apoplectic if your neighbor moves to Texas or Florida. What horrible, disgusting people who are leaving their forme…

[deleted]

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#223

Post by DuskStar »

unreal37 wrote: post #215
buboard wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ideally, governments only need to know how much each person spent/earned. Not where and how. But , it seems there is no way to make even tiny amounts of purchases without a bunch of people sharing your full details with each other. On the other hand, there's crypto

Which is not anonymous.

Some of it is - ZCash for example.

But most of it isn't.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#224

Post by Scoundreller »

hogFeast wrote: post #77
jdkee wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the company I founded and currently manage is offshored for tax and legal purposes" Simply curious, how do you feel about the ethics of this? Is it to reduce the tax burden in your company's home country?

In most cases, setting up your business there saves you no tax. It only saves you tax if you are a resident or if you don't tell the govt where you are a tax resident that you have a business there (not telling your govt is tremendously risky given that most of this information is now reported). The main reason businesses are set up there is the legal benefits. Not just a stable legal environment but also because it…

Depends on the country. Some countries have treaties letting your home corporation receive dividends from its foreign affiliate tax-free. Canada allows this kind of thing.

Then there's how to wash your Canadian income into this foreign operation...

There was a big case of a uranium mining company in Canada that sold options that effectively forced it to forever sell its product to its recently setup Swiss subsidiary at the "glut" price. If the price went up, all the profit would go to the Swiss subsidiary. If the price stayed low, they'd just liquidate the subsidiary.

Voila.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#225

Post by steven_is_false »

lemmox wrote: post #78
jokoon wrote: post #21

After watching The laundromat, I think it's big news. Although I will always be curious why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth, and why they're trusted to do it. This can't be secure or safe. I'm curious about the diplomacy and the political implications of this. What if their office get robbed? What if the island gets attacked? What if one of those shady ban…

Many tax havens are actually quite stable and have very reliable banking systems. Canada encourages "snow washing" with Limited Partnerships. Canada's banks are quite good and the corporate legislation allows a degree of anonymity. This structure has no obligation to file taxes in Canada. The partners in the structure have to pay taxes however if the partner is not a Canadian entity that obligation is in some other j…

Hah No surprise from a Canadian. Canada is a tourist trap: a terrible place that just happens to have good marketing.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#226

Post by selimthegrim »

aphextim wrote: post #20
Miner49er wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. "Epstein didn't kill himself" is still a meme. That proves there's a market for the Epstein news, IMO. The public absolutely cares. Plus, there's evidence it's being swept under the rug: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/leaked-fo...

I enjoy the "Epstein didn't kill himself" meme as it encompasses both ideas. Popular, he was murdered to be silenced from his handlers. Unpopular, he is still alive and living somewhere in secret. However if the meme was changed a little bit, even to "Who killed Epstein?" that would omit the 2nd more unpopular theory altogether.

My personal favorite was the same_spiderman.jpg with Spiderman multiplied a few times with the Photoshop clone tool titled "All the billionaires who want to kill Epstein"

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#227

Post by anigbrowl »

iudqnolq wrote: post #108
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the "malfunctioning" cameras also just not fear accountability?

No, the people who were supposed to maintain them didn't bother because they knew they didn't have to fear accountability and they were extremely understaffed and overworked. > A New York Times investigation published last year detailed this practice, under which federal prisons are so strapped for correctional officers that they regularly compel teachers, nurses, secretaries and other support staff members to step i…

Those are legitimate observations, but so is CamperBob's. I have first hand experience of how bad the carceral system can be, but the fact of that awfulness doesn't mitigate the oddness of a very high profile prisoner just falling through the cracks.

The whole thesis here is that what happened to Epstein could happen to anyone, but that's not true. Most people are not billionaires with 24-7 access to the best lawyers in the world and extraordinary leverage over some of the most powerful people in the world. The implicit subtext here is that Epstein is just another human that got chewed up in a system that's generally indifferent if not outright hostile to human life. But people in jail are not mindless components in a dysfunctional system. They still have agency and respond to incentives and are mostly intensely interested in each other, not least because of the inhospitality of the system. They have newspapers and TV in jail, and I very sure that everyone in there was very aware of who their new neighbor was.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#228

Post by lemmox »

poxrud wrote: post #122
lemmox wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many tax havens are actually quite stable and have very reliable banking systems. Canada encourages "snow washing" with Limited Partnerships. Canada's banks are quite good and the corporate legislation allows a degree of anonymity. This structure has no obligation to file taxes in Canada. The partners in the structure have to pay taxes however if the partner is not a Canadian entity that obligation is in some other j…

But Canada shares banking data with the IRS. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fatca-tax-us-canada-1.53539...

Yes, Canadian tax residents have serious obligations, as do US citizens (no matter where they live)!

LPs on the other hand, do not _if_ there is no economic activity in Canada and there's a tax treaty at play with the founding partner jurisdiction. Canada doesn't have the authority to tax foreign owned businesses unless they participate in the Canadian economy.

Eg: Your international entities can route money through a Canadian LP that is owned by your Barbados corporation. In this scenario there's no Canadian tax obligation and the money trail becomes harder to follow due to Canada's privacy laws (your company name might not be on your LP documentation). Your company does, of course, have to settle up the tax obligation with Barbados.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#229

Post by seppin »

bouncycastle wrote: post #183
karambahh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the social contract of most countries is that your legally gained cash is to be taxed in one form or another and thus has to be known by the tax authorities? You can argue that your assets are to be private to the general public but some countries do not have that assumption (Norway comes to mind).

By "legally gained cash" I mean that taxes have already been paid for it.

Also, governments are finding new and creative ways to put new taxes on already legal money.

So yeah, privacy matters.

Re: Hacker Publishes 2TB of Data from Cayman National Bank

#230

Post by orpheansodality »

situationista wrote: post #56
jokoon wrote: post #21

After watching The laundromat, I think it's big news. Although I will always be curious why countries are letting those small, insignificant islands and countries manage all this wealth, and why they're trusted to do it. This can't be secure or safe. I'm curious about the diplomacy and the political implications of this. What if their office get robbed? What if the island gets attacked? What if one of those shady ban…

Note that in his write-up of how the hack was accomplished (someone pasted a link in another comment) the hacker specifically mentions his attack was on Cayman National Bank of the Isle of Man. From cursory research it appears to be based there, not in the Cayman Islands.

* her -- she refers to herself as a girl multiple times in the writeup

edit: or possibly they/them -- I'm seeing conflicting info circulating around

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