By Jean-Francois Cloutier, QMI Agency From Toronto Sun

Opening a bank account in a tax haven is child’s play, a cinch for virtually any Canadian, QMI Agency has found.

QMI currently holds a credit card in good standing, issued from a tiny Caribbean island, to hide money from Canadian tax authorities.

It looks like just any other MasterCard.

We can use it for any purchase in Canada or elsewhere, without anyone asking us questions.

We can visit any Canadian financial institution to transfer the funds. QMI chose a Desjardins credit union branch.

To stay off the taxman’s radar screens, we simply had to deposit less than $10,000 at a time. Had we moved more than $10,000, Canadian financial institutions would have been required to report the transaction to a federal agency, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

Obtaining the Caribbean MasterCard and opening an offshore account required just a basic knowledge of finance, an average command of the Internet, and the ability to lie about one’s identity.

No one really wanted to know the truth, we discovered during our investigation, so long as we paid the fee to open the account.

QMI posed as a computer-repair contractor and was able to:

– Create a shell company in the Central American tax haven of Belize without ever leaving Montreal. Belize has no public business registry and we were able to hide our true identity by using aliases

– Open a bank account in a Caribbean tax haven, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and get a credit card allowing us to make cash withdrawals in Canada.

At no point in the process were we bothered by Canadian tax authorities or banks, who agreed to funnel our money to various offshore accounts.

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THE BENEFITS OF AN OFFSHORE COMPANY IN BELIZE

– Companies established by foreigners pay no tax to the government of Belize. The only fees are for the incorporation of the company.

– Information about directors, officers, shareholders and the beneficial owner are not registered in Belize and are not accessible to the public. It’s impossible for prying eyes to know who controls the company.

– No control over funds transferred abroad. People can deposit large sums into another tax haven, no questions asked.

– Any individual or corporation can become a shareholder, director or officer of the company. In other words, owners can hide behind aliases or empty shells.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

QMI paid $2,925 US to create a company in Belize and contact an offshore bank. That’s not counting the annual $1,730 US management fee.

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A SHADY WEB OF ALIASES

It’s nearly impossible for an outsider to know who’s behind the Technofix Corporation that QMI Agency created.

The company’s list of directors exists on paper only. They’re fictional entities, aliases who have no real power.

Even QMI doesn’t know where the names came from. A middleman suggested them.

The company’s real owner is called the “Beneficial Owner.” Only the offshore bank and the middleman know our true identity. Revenue Canada and Revenue-Quebec didn’t know the real owner.

A confidential document was sent to us indicating Technofix’s directors (who don’t really exist) conferred all management powers to the secret beneficial owner. We were even sent an undated resignation letter, purportedly from the directors, in case any problems were to arise.

IT’S TOO EASY

1. Find a middleman

Through a simple Google search, we made e-mail contact with a person specializing in incorporating and opening bank accounts in tax havens. The company, A & P Intertrust (Belize) Ltd., is a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and its website says it offers “cost- and time-effective business solutions.”

2. Create a shell company

A representative of A & P Intertrust suggested several names to establish our company registered in Belize. We chose the name Technofix Corporation. Creating a company makes it more difficult to identify the customer who wishes to place money offshore, even if the company has no real activities. We wrote that we specialize in repairing computers and that our customers were mainly Canadian. No one checked these claims.

3. Open an account in an offshore bank

Once our Technofix company was open and registered in Belize, we received an introduction letter from A & P Intertrust to Loyal Bank, which is based on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We were also given other tax havens to choose from in the Seychelles, Cyprus, Latvia and Singapore.

After we sent personal documents to Loyal Bank to verify our identity, we were able to open the account on behalf of Technofix Corporation. Personal information sent to the bank will not appear in any public database.

4. Send the Money

We received special instructions about various routes to send money to the Loyal Bank. The money can’t go directly to St. Vincent and the Grenadines from Canada, we were told. It must go through foreign intermediary banks. Money trails are constantly changed, said one employee. A Loyal Bank agent told us to make a transfer to the Mediterranean Bank in Malta, where the money would be redirected to St. Vincent.

5. Withdraw the Money

Once the money is transferred, the bank sent us two different packages by registered mail: a credit card and a personal identification number (PIN). In one package was an intriguing little device. It’s used to generate six-figure codes for transfers and transactions. “The unit automatically self-destructs if you try to modify it,” warns the accompanying brochure.

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Required Documents

– Canadian passport

– Hydro-Quebec account (in Quebec)

– Driver’s licence

– Letter from a Canadian bank attesting that we are good client (no other details)

– Notary seal on all documents

For more on this story go to:

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/11/22/how-we-hid-our-money-offshore–its-easier-than-you-think