MESOPMIDE EAST WATCH INTEL: Bellingcat’s Bi-Weekly Newsletter
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Einblicke in die geheimnisvolle Welt der irischen Kommanditgesellschaften
- Juni 2022
Anfang Juni 2019 war die Kryptowährungsplattform Bitsane ein Bienenstock voller Aktivitäten.
Laut CoinMarketCap, einer preisverfolgenden Website für Krypto-Assets, hatte es ein Handelsvolumen im Wert von 7 Millionen US-Dollar pro Tag. Bitsane selbst rühmte sich mit Nutzern in über 200 Ländern.
Innerhalb weniger Wochen waren die Plattform, ihre Social-Media-Seiten und die Einzahlungen von knapp 250.000 registrierten Nutzern jedoch verschwunden.
Bitsane-Kunden nutzten die sozialen Medien, um zuerst zu fragen, ob es ein vorübergehendes Problem gab, dann gerieten sie in Panik wegen ihrer Einlagen und verglichen dann wütend Verluste.
Einige hatten Zehntausende von Dollar in eine Vielzahl von Kryptowährungen investiert, die auf der Plattform angeboten wurden.
Aber von einem Tag auf den anderen war all das weg.
“Ich möchte nur diese Bastarde im Gefängnis sehen”, hieß es in einem Beitrag auf einem Telegram-Kanal, in dem sich Opfer versammelten, um ihre Erfahrungen zu diskutieren.
Wohin das Geld ging, bleibt ein Rätsel, ebenso wie die wahre Identität, wer hinter Bitsane steckte.
Alles, was übrig bleibt, sind Spuren der Firma in Unternehmensformularen und Dokumenten.
Bitsane wurde 2016 in Irland an einer Adresse im Zentrum von Dublin registriert. Allerdings hatte es dort nie ein Büro, zumindest nicht im physischen Sinne. Die Website scheint kaum mehr als eine Postanschrift gewesen zu sein, die Hunderte anderer Unternehmen ohne erkennbare Verbindung zu Irland ebenfalls verwendeten.
Dokumente des irischen Companies Registration Office (CRO) beschreiben, dass Bitsanes Komplementär eine Person war, die eine Kontaktadresse in Litauen zur Verfügung stellte. Ihr Kommanditist war eine in Hongkong ansässige Gesellschaft, deren einziger Anteilseigner ihren Sitz in Weißrussland hatte. Die Gründungsdokumente von Bitsane wurden unterdessen von einem in London ansässigen Agenten vorgelegt, der sich auf die Einrichtung und Registrierung von Unternehmensstrukturen spezialisiert hat.
Dieselbe Firma hat in den letzten Jahren Dutzende anderer Unternehmen gegründet, die wie Bitsane Irish Limited Partnerships (ILPs) sind – eine Art Unternehmensvehikel, das ausschließlich in Irland erhältlich ist.
Die registrierte Dubliner Adresse von Bitsane (Bild: Google Street View).
Während viele der ILPs, die von diesem Gründungsagenten registriert wurden – und andere, die von Bellingcat mit dem Berichterstattungspartner The Sunday Times überprüft wurden – legitime Unternehmen sein könnten, war Bitsane es nicht.
Doch herauszufinden, wer seine wahren Eigentümer sind und damit die Individuen hinter der Operation, ist äußerst kompliziert. Jede Untersuchung müsste wahrscheinlich mehrere Gerichtsbarkeiten durchqueren, darunter Irland, das Vereinigte Königreich, Litauen, Hongkong und Weißrussland. Ein Vertreter des Formationsagenten sagte Bellingcat, dass sie auf alle polizeilichen Anfragen reagiert hätten und es keinen Hinweis darauf gibt, dass irgendjemand außer Bitsane in irgendeine Illegalität verwickelt war. Irlands Polizeidienst, An Garda Síochána, sagte der Sunday Times, es gebe derzeit keine laufenden Ermittlungen in dieser Angelegenheit.
Ein archivierter Screenshot von Bitsanes Website, bevor sie verschwand.
Andere ILPs können noch komplexer sein, da Partner als Unternehmen mit Sitz in Geheimhaltungsgerichtsbarkeiten aufgeführt sind – Ländern, in denen Unternehmensunterlagen entweder nicht aufbewahrt oder nicht an die Öffentlichkeit weitergegeben werden.
Dies bedeutet, dass dank der jahrhundertealten Regeln, die ILPs zugrunde liegen, der wahre Eigentümer eines Unternehmens nicht registriert oder benannt werden muss. Viele Partner scheinen generisch benannte Unternehmen mit Sitz in Belize oder den Seychellen zu sein, was nach Ansicht von Experten ILPs anfällig für Missbrauch macht.
Der ILP-Ansturm
Bellingcat war in der Lage, das wahre Ausmaß der ILP-Nutzung und die komplexen Strukturen, die sie oft schaffen, zu analysieren, indem es in den letzten Monaten Tausende von Dokumenten aus dem CRO heruntergeladen und überprüft hat.
Dieses Material zeigt, dass seit 2015 fast 1.000 ILPs mit undurchsichtigem Eigentum und Partnern in Geheimhaltungsjurisdiktionen gebildet wurden.
Die Geschwindigkeit, mit der ILPs gebildet werden, war in den letzten Jahren beispiellos. Aufzeichnungen zeigen, dass zwischen den frühen 1900er Jahren und 2014 etwas mehr als 1.000 ILPs erstellt wurden. Diese Zahl wird jedoch von den 2.400 in den Schatten gestellt, die zwischen 2015 und 2021 eingerichtet wurden, 70% der Gesamtzahl der jemals geschaffenen ILPs.
Dieser ILP-Ansturm wurde 2017 sogar vom CRO selbst beobachtet, als er in seinem Jahresbericht feststellte, dass eine Rekordzahl (676) registriert worden war.
Die Dokumente, die Bellingcat und The Sunday Times eingesehen haben, zeigen auch, dass:
- Hunderte von ILPs wurden von demselben Agenten gebildet.
- Mehr als 1.250 ILPs wurden an nur drei Postanschriften in Dublin und Cork registriert.
- Die Rate, mit der ILPs gegründet wurden, schoss in die Höhe, nachdem in Großbritannien eine Gesetzgebung eingeführt wurde, die die wahren Eigentümer von Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) offenbaren sollte. Es wurde zuvor berichtet, dass einige SLPs in große internationale Betrügereien verwickelt waren.
- Eine Person mit Sitz auf den Seychellen war Komplementär in fast 150 ILPs, während ein rumänischer Staatsbürger der kontrollierende Partner in mehr als 370 ILPs war.
- In bestimmten Fällen könnten ILP sowohl für Ein- und Ausfuhren in als auch aus einer Vielzahl von Ländern, vor allem aber aus Russland und der Ukraine, festgestellt werden. Es konnten keine Informationen über ihre wahren Besitzer gesammelt werden.
Laut Declan de Lacy, einem Restrukturierungspartner der Dubliner Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft PKF O’Connor, Leddy & Holmes, haben ILPs es Partnern in der Vergangenheit ermöglicht, in ein Unternehmen zu investieren, während sie ihre Haftung auf den von ihnen beigesteuerten Betrag begrenzten. Sie haben sich als nützlich für Investmentfonds, Familienpartnerschaften und Immobilieninvestitionen erwiesen, sagte de Lacy, wobei die Steuern nur von den Partnern auf ihren Anteil am Gewinn gezahlt werden.
de Lacy fügte jedoch hinzu, dass ILPs auch zu einer effektiven Möglichkeit geworden sind, ein Unternehmen zu gründen, dessen wirtschaftlicher Eigentümer nicht leicht identifiziert werden kann. “Die Partner können und sind oft alle Unternehmen aus Jurisdiktionen, die vollständige Anonymität zulassen und aus Compliance-Sicht als hohes Risiko angesehen werden”, sagte er.
Graham Barrow, ein in Großbritannien ansässiger Experte für Kommanditgesellschaften, sagte, dass diejenigen, die hinter ILPs stehen, nur “sehr begrenzte Informationen darüber bereitstellen müssen, wer sie sind, es gibt keine Anmeldeanforderungen, keine Überprüfung; Es sind nur ein paar Namen auf ein bisschen Papier und eine Adresse. Das wird also zu einer wunderbar undurchsichtigen Methode, um Eigentum und Kontrolle zu verbergen.”
Was genau ist eine irische Kommanditgesellschaft?
ILPs entstand als Teil des britischen Limited Partnerships Act von 1907. Zu dieser Zeit war Irland noch ein Teil des Vereinigten Königreichs.
Das gleiche Gesetz brachte Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) ins Leben, ein Firmenvehikel, das ausschließlich in Schottland zu finden ist. Bellingcat hat zuvor eine Reihe von Berichten über den angeblichen Missbrauch von SLPs erstellt, nachdem eine Reihe von hochkarätigen Geldwäscheprogrammen ans Licht gekommen war.
Dazu gehört ein Betrug, der 2014 schätzungsweise 1 Milliarde US-Dollar illegal von Banken in Moldawien abgezogen hat. Im Jahr 2017 wurden zwei SLPs verwendet, um Milliarden aus Aserbaidschan zu leiten, um sie für Luxusgüter auszugeben und politischen Einfluss in Europa zu gewinnen. SLPs spielten eine wichtige Rolle im russischen Waschsalon-Skandal, bei dem 20,8 Milliarden Dollar über ein Netzwerk von Banken weltweit aus Russland abgezogen wurden.
SLPs, like ILPs, had limited filing requirements and did not require the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the partnership – the person who ultimately controls a business – to be named.
SLPs could also be registered to companies in secrecy jurisdictions – adding another layer of opacity to shield the true identity of a company’s owner. In 2016, at least 71% of all new SLP registrations were controlled by companies in secrecy jurisdictions.
New person of significant control (PSC) rules were introduced in the UK in 2017 in an attempt to ensure the true beneficial owners of SLPs would have to be revealed. Further investigations after this legislation was enacted found that the vast majority of beneficial owners of SLPs were based outside in the UK, mostly in Ukraine and Russia.
The number of SLPs registered dropped after legislation that required beneficial owners to be named was passed.
SLP numbers soon began to dwindle.
ILPs, however, were not covered by this new legislation (given the Republic of Ireland has now long been independent from the UK) and still offered similar benefits to those originally offered by SLPs. From 2015, their numbers began to increase sharply.
When asked about this rise, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Department for Enterprise, Trade and Employment told The Sunday Times that the reasons for this were not entirely clear but Brexit and a tightening of the UK LP [limited partnership] regime could have been a contributory factor.
Irish Limited Partnership registrations since 2006.
Some of the same formation agents that Bellingcat previously identified setting up SLPs began to register ILPs around this time. Among the most prodigious was LAS Fiduciary, which set up roughly one in five of the nearly 676 newly created ILPs in 2017. Records for LAS Fiduciary reveal that one of its directors was also an officer at the similarly named LAS International (UK). LAS International (UK) was itself the formation agent for 39 ILPs between 2015 and 2021, including Bitsane.
Bellingcat has written about LAS International (UK) previously after it registered 1,632 SLPs over a two year period.
Emailed responses to questions sent by Bellingcat to a contact address on LAS Fiduciary registration documents, and signed off by a Ms Elena Yael Dovzhik (who identified herself as a former director of LAS Fiduciary and LAS International), said that both companies had terminated operations and had filed for voluntary dissolution last year.
Still, she said that all Know Your Customer (KYC) checks had been carried out when they had been operational, that as a formation agent they had never been involved in any of the business activities of their clients and that if a beneficial owner was accused of illegal activity their services were terminated. All beneficial owners were declared when required, she added, and that they have always responded to police investigative queries.
Yet Dovzhik’s emailed comments also stated that: “we are aware that many years ago we filed registration documents for some companies that eventually were accused in unlawful activities, but such information was not available to us prior registration”. It added that “this is a problem of any company formation or filing agents as there is always a certain percentage of potentially unlawful businesses of any type or form”.
As a formation agent, Dovzhik said they could not have expected company owners to have abused ILPs in the way that they did. The same was true for any SLPs that may have been abused, she said, and that they would “never provide any service to a company that was used for unlawful activities”.
LAS International terminated all services to Bitsane when the company became aware of the scam via news reports, Dovzhik said. She added that if there was any police request “we would have provided them with all relevant information that is allowed to be disclosed to certain authorities”.
There is no suggestion that LAS International, LAS Fiduciary or anyone employed at these organisations acted outside the law. The full emailed responses from Dovzhik can be seen at the bottom of this article. Records show that LAS International (UK) has been dissolved.
ILPs From the Seychelles to Belize
The attractiveness of ILPs to individuals or organisations who appear to have no connection to Ireland is clear from the data analysed by Bellingcat and The Sunday Times.
Just under 800 ILPs that were registered during the period monitored by Bellingcat (between 2015 and 2021) had an Irish general partner – making up less than a third of the total formed.
In total, 501 of the ILPs registered in 2017 alone were controlled by general partners based in the Seychelles or Belize. This amounted to 74% of the ILPs registered in 2017.
At that time, both countries were included on an EU tax jurisdiction watchlist, although they have since been removed. General partners of ILPs formed between 2015 and 2021 were also based in other countries with limited reporting requirements such as the British Virgin Islands, Panama and the Cayman Islands.
While many legitimate businesses may choose to structure themselves in this way and there is nothing wrong with forming a company in this manner, experts say the discretion such setups provide can also be beneficial to those with more nefarious aims.
Barrow said that the aim of money launderers, scammers and international criminals was to build a complex, multi-jurisdictional web that cannot be traced. “You could have an Irish Limited Partnership but it is owned by a couple of Marshall Islands companies, and they bank in the Baltics, and the controllers of those companies might themselves be Panamanian,” he said. That kind of complexity “makes it impossible to do any form of law enforcement.”
John Devitt, chief executive of Transparency International Ireland, said he would be “very surprised” if Irish Limited Partnerships were not being used by international criminals given “they allow for companies registered in jurisdictions with weak rule of law to form the partnerships.”
Although Bellingcat was eventually able to identify a disproportionate number of Ukrainian and Russian nationals controlling SLPs in previous investigations, it was not possible to draw such firm conclusions with ILPs given the limited data on beneficial owners currently available. However, some ILPs did appear to be enabling companies to bypass Person of Significant Control (PSC) requirements in the UK.
As many as 51 ILPs were named as PSCs for UK companies, almost all of which were SLPs. All of the 51 Irish partnerships in question had general partners based abroad, either in Bulgaria or Belize.
While this practice is not illegal, it does potentially appear to get around the spirit of ensuring persons of significant interest are detailed for UK companies.
Unlike the UK, Ireland is a European Union member and has transposed the EU’s fifth anti-money laundering directive into law, setting up a register of beneficial ownership for companies.
However, ILPs fall outside the scope of these regulations which only refer to corporate and legal entities that are incorporated. Unless the partners of an ILP are themselves such entities there is no requirement to reveal this information.
The Price of Transparency
Obtaining what data there was for Bellingcat’s previous investigations into SLPs proved to be far easier than gathering the same information for ILPs.
Companies House, which hosts information about businesses in the UK is free to browse and all data held there can be downloaded at no price. The same level of detail in corporate documents for Irish entities must be purchased.
For every document requested, a price of 2.50 Euros ($2.67) was applied, ensuring a further barrier to investigation given thousands of documents were required to conduct a thorough analysis. Bellingcat purchased the formation documents for every ILP registered since the beginning of 2015 – when ILP registrations shot up rapidly – at a cost of 6,000 Euros ($6,300) with funds provided by an Investigative Journalism for Europe grant.
This data was collated to show details of partners, their location and their formation agents.
Bellingcat also searched for the business activities of every partnership, to ascertain whether there were any potential red flags surrounding illicit or suspicious activities.
More than 600 of the roughly 2,400 ILPs registered since 2015 have an online presence of some kind. Some were clearly legitimate businesses, including hedge funds, financial investment ventures and even a sourdough bread business. But questions remained over others.
For example, dozens of those 600 websites contained no clear indication of what the ILPs actual business was. No contact details were displayed other than the address of the registered office, which was often just a mailing address. Some of the sites appeared to be filled out with stock photographs and other generic imagery.
Bellingcat also put the name of each ILP in its database into ImportGenius, a website that tracks international import and export data, yielding a large number of results. The names of ILPs could be found attached to imports and exports to and from a variety of countries, but predominantly Russia and Ukraine.
One company was recorded as having traded with a subsidiary of a state-owned mining company in Russia. A further 71 ILPs appeared to be acting as trade intermediaries for shipments of goods coming out of Russia and Ukraine. Four ILPs formed during a short time period by the same formation agent, meanwhile, shared their name with companies in Russia that operate crude oil tankers.
Again, none of these companies were required to reveal their beneficial owner and no further information could be discovered about them.
Other ILPs included a dating platform that advertised Ukrainian women to foreigners, a Russian app that claims to promote job offers in the modelling field, a Russian “webmodel agency” and a Russian visa service. There is no evidence suggesting any of these companies are engaged in illegal activities.
One individual based in the Seychelles was a partner in close to 150 ILPs. In 2018, one of these ventures was subject of a press release by the Central Bank of Ireland warning that it was an unauthorised investment firm. The formation agent for this ILP was LAS Fiduciary. When asked about this Dovzhik said by email that it operated as a virtual filing agent for international corporate clients such as lawyers and accountants and that it was never involved in any of its former clients’ business activities. It added that it was not aware who identified this client as an unregulated financial agent, nor when this happened, and that it only assisted clients with their formation process and filings.
ILPs for sale
Irish Limited Partnerships in and of themselves also appear to be a lucrative business.
Some were found being advertised on a variety of websites and spreadsheets online. ILPs were advertised in Russian, suggesting they were being targeted at an audience in that country or in the nations of the former Soviet Union where many residents also speak Russian.
A spreadsheet with Russian titles and headings found online advertising ILPs.
The cost of registering an ILP is less than 50 euros, but to buy a partnership from a formation agent off-the-shelf (with an existing track record of operation) the cost can run into hundreds or even thousands of Euros.
A screen grab shows ILPs for sale on a Russian language website.
Authorities in Ireland have no mechanism to control the activities of websites in Russia selling their corporate vehicles.
On some websites, various administrative functions are advertised to assist customers with corporate filings, the provision of registered offices and due diligence filings. It is thus entirely possible that the true beneficial owners of these partnerships will never need to register their name on any document related to the business.
The lack of a need for Irish residency for partners, the advantage of having a company in an EU country and tax advantages are all touted as selling points of ILPs on these websites. The value of using corporate entities as partners is also detailed.
A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE), which oversees the CRO, told The Sunday Times that it was “currently conducting a review of the Limited Partnership Act 1907 and that review will consider the issue of beneficial ownership and how best to ensure transparency”.
It added: “This review is due to conclude shortly, with a view to bringing a General Scheme to Government as soon as possible.”
Without a more robust system of due diligence or a register of beneficial owners for ILPs, however, the threat of another Bitsane-type scam remains.
Full Emailed Responses from Elena Dovzhik
Your request was forwarded to us regarding former activities of LAS FIDUCIARY in Republic of Ireland, as all of our companies fully terminated their business activities while ago.
Thank you for your email and an opportunity to have our say in this unpleasant situation with our former clients.
We are not sure who and when identified LAS FIDUCIARY’s client’s activity as “an unauthorised investment firm” as LAS FIDUCIARY only operated as virtual filing agent in the Republic of Ireland, on behalf of international corporate clients (such as International Lawyers and Accountants). We never been involved in any business activities of our former clients and only assisted our clients with their company’s formation process and filings.
While other journalists and investigators are making their assumptions, without full understanding of company formation and-mail forwarding services industry, we would like to clarify that at the sale point of our services we are obliged to collect all KYC information (according to AMLR) and our clients only declare to us their intentional business activities for newly incorporated companies, before their bank accounts are being open and their trading activities start.
All companies had to declare their Beneficial Owners (if applicable) before any filing order was accepted by our representatives.
Yes, we are aware that many years ago we filed registration documents for some companies that eventually were accused in unlawful activities, but such information was not available to us prior registration. This is a problem of any company formation or filing agents as there is always a certain percentage of potentially unlawful businesses of any type or form i.e LTD, LLP, LP, etc.
The popularity of LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS in the UK & Republic of Ireland was explained to us by the low cost of their annual maintenance, as there is not legal requirements for them to file Annual Financial Statement and in most cases absence of Annual Return filing requirement (unlike LTD). But we could not expect that this form of company (LP) will be abused by its owners in unlawful ways.
How the company formation agents can be responsible for this is they do all KYC checks before any trading starts? Please clarify to us any logic behind the accusation for LAS INTERNATIONAL being the formation agents of companies such as BITSANE and defrauding thousands of people? This information came to light after any formation/filing services were provided to this company and any further services were terminated with immediate effect for such clients. We always responded to any police investigative queries with requested KYC information and never supported any unlawful business activities of our former clients.
We had enhanced Due diligence for all international clients and collected all required KYC information. If any of our clients was ever reported to us as being under suspicion of being involved in unlawful activities , their services were terminated with immediate effect , as this is a breach of our Terms & Conditions. Yes, we cooperated with professional intermediaries-resellers (such as Lawyers and Accountants) from worldwide, who requested and purchased our services for their multiple individual clients. Many of them were from Eastern Europe and are considered as “high risk”. The Company/LP/Partnership’s structure is always decided by the client/owner and we never been involved in this decision making process.
Due to negative publicity and abusive use of LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS by international clients we stopped providing this type of entities with any further filing services.
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I personally was not approached by anyone in relation to the legal proceedings against this company [Bitsane]. But if there was any police request in relation to this company, we would have provided them with all relevant information that is allowed to be disclosed to certain authorities. We found out about this issue from media publications and terminated any further services with immediate effect.”
All KYC information was obtained by our team before any services were provided to these clients and this company was formed in 2016. Declaration of Beneficial Owner is part of any KYC compliance process (if this was applicable ). According to GDPR we are only allowed to disclose this information to specific authorities.”
Yes, we assisted with filings of incorporation forms for Scottish Limited Partnerships years ago. At that time, we did not expect that this type of company will be abused in such way, as we attributed their popularity to the low annual maintenance cost (absence of annual filing requirements for Limited Partnerships).
Usually, we were notified by a police department on investigation process against some companies that used our mail-forwarding address or sometimes this information comes to us from media publications. As I mentioned before, we terminated our services with immediate effect for such companies as this is breach of our Terms & Conditions. We would never provide any service to a company that was used for unlawful activities, as this was not the original reason declared to us by the clients, prior the company’s formation/filings.”
Due to negative publications and frequent police requests in relation to Limited Partnerships we terminated any further formation filings for this type of companies. LAS International (former name) and LAS Fiduciary filed for voluntary dissolution during last year. This also relates to our partner’s company Company Formation Advice Ltd.
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Logan Williams contributed to this story.
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Einblicke in die geheimnisvolle Welt der irischen Kommanditgesellschaften
- Juni 2022
Anfang Juni 2019 war die Kryptowährungsplattform Bitsane ein Bienenstock voller Aktivitäten.
Laut CoinMarketCap, einer preisverfolgenden Website für Krypto-Assets, hatte es ein Handelsvolumen im Wert von 7 Millionen US-Dollar pro Tag. Bitsane selbst rühmte sich mit Nutzern in über 200 Ländern.
Innerhalb weniger Wochen waren die Plattform, ihre Social-Media-Seiten und die Einzahlungen von knapp 250.000 registrierten Nutzern jedoch verschwunden.
Bitsane-Kunden nutzten die sozialen Medien, um zuerst zu fragen, ob es ein vorübergehendes Problem gab, dann gerieten sie in Panik wegen ihrer Einlagen und verglichen dann wütend Verluste.
Einige hatten Zehntausende von Dollar in eine Vielzahl von Kryptowährungen investiert, die auf der Plattform angeboten wurden.
Aber von einem Tag auf den anderen war all das weg.
“Ich möchte nur diese Bastarde im Gefängnis sehen”, hieß es in einem Beitrag auf einem Telegram-Kanal, in dem sich Opfer versammelten, um ihre Erfahrungen zu diskutieren.
Wohin das Geld ging, bleibt ein Rätsel, ebenso wie die wahre Identität, wer hinter Bitsane steckte.
Alles, was übrig bleibt, sind Spuren der Firma in Unternehmensformularen und Dokumenten.
Bitsane wurde 2016 in Irland an einer Adresse im Zentrum von Dublin registriert. Allerdings hatte es dort nie ein Büro, zumindest nicht im physischen Sinne. Die Website scheint kaum mehr als eine Postanschrift gewesen zu sein, die Hunderte anderer Unternehmen ohne erkennbare Verbindung zu Irland ebenfalls verwendeten.
Dokumente des irischen Companies Registration Office (CRO) beschreiben, dass Bitsanes Komplementär eine Person war, die eine Kontaktadresse in Litauen zur Verfügung stellte. Ihr Kommanditist war eine in Hongkong ansässige Gesellschaft, deren einziger Anteilseigner ihren Sitz in Weißrussland hatte. Die Gründungsdokumente von Bitsane wurden unterdessen von einem in London ansässigen Agenten vorgelegt, der sich auf die Einrichtung und Registrierung von Unternehmensstrukturen spezialisiert hat.
Dieselbe Firma hat in den letzten Jahren Dutzende anderer Unternehmen gegründet, die wie Bitsane Irish Limited Partnerships (ILPs) sind – eine Art Unternehmensvehikel, das ausschließlich in Irland erhältlich ist.
Die registrierte Dubliner Adresse von Bitsane (Bild: Google Street View).
Während viele der ILPs, die von diesem Gründungsagenten registriert wurden – und andere, die von Bellingcat mit dem Berichterstattungspartner The Sunday Times überprüft wurden – legitime Unternehmen sein könnten, war Bitsane es nicht.
Doch herauszufinden, wer seine wahren Eigentümer sind und damit die Individuen hinter der Operation, ist äußerst kompliziert. Jede Untersuchung müsste wahrscheinlich mehrere Gerichtsbarkeiten durchqueren, darunter Irland, das Vereinigte Königreich, Litauen, Hongkong und Weißrussland. Ein Vertreter des Formationsagenten sagte Bellingcat, dass sie auf alle polizeilichen Anfragen reagiert hätten und es keinen Hinweis darauf gibt, dass irgendjemand außer Bitsane in irgendeine Illegalität verwickelt war. Irlands Polizeidienst, An Garda Síochána, sagte der Sunday Times, es gebe derzeit keine laufenden Ermittlungen in dieser Angelegenheit.
Ein archivierter Screenshot von Bitsanes Website, bevor sie verschwand.
Andere ILPs können noch komplexer sein, da Partner als Unternehmen mit Sitz in Geheimhaltungsgerichtsbarkeiten aufgeführt sind – Ländern, in denen Unternehmensunterlagen entweder nicht aufbewahrt oder nicht an die Öffentlichkeit weitergegeben werden.
Dies bedeutet, dass dank der jahrhundertealten Regeln, die ILPs zugrunde liegen, der wahre Eigentümer eines Unternehmens nicht registriert oder benannt werden muss. Viele Partner scheinen generisch benannte Unternehmen mit Sitz in Belize oder den Seychellen zu sein, was nach Ansicht von Experten ILPs anfällig für Missbrauch macht.
Der ILP-Ansturm
Bellingcat war in der Lage, das wahre Ausmaß der ILP-Nutzung und die komplexen Strukturen, die sie oft schaffen, zu analysieren, indem es in den letzten Monaten Tausende von Dokumenten aus dem CRO heruntergeladen und überprüft hat.
Dieses Material zeigt, dass seit 2015 fast 1.000 ILPs mit undurchsichtigem Eigentum und Partnern in Geheimhaltungsjurisdiktionen gebildet wurden.
Die Geschwindigkeit, mit der ILPs gebildet werden, war in den letzten Jahren beispiellos. Aufzeichnungen zeigen, dass zwischen den frühen 1900er Jahren und 2014 etwas mehr als 1.000 ILPs erstellt wurden. Diese Zahl wird jedoch von den 2.400 in den Schatten gestellt, die zwischen 2015 und 2021 eingerichtet wurden, 70% der Gesamtzahl der jemals geschaffenen ILPs.
Dieser ILP-Ansturm wurde 2017 sogar vom CRO selbst beobachtet, als er in seinem Jahresbericht feststellte, dass eine Rekordzahl (676) registriert worden war.
Die Dokumente, die Bellingcat und The Sunday Times eingesehen haben, zeigen auch, dass:
- Hunderte von ILPs wurden von demselben Agenten gebildet.
- Mehr als 1.250 ILPs wurden an nur drei Postanschriften in Dublin und Cork registriert.
- Die Rate, mit der ILPs gegründet wurden, schoss in die Höhe, nachdem in Großbritannien eine Gesetzgebung eingeführt wurde, die die wahren Eigentümer von Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) offenbaren sollte. Es wurde zuvor berichtet, dass einige SLPs in große internationale Betrügereien verwickelt waren.
- Eine Person mit Sitz auf den Seychellen war Komplementär in fast 150 ILPs, während ein rumänischer Staatsbürger der kontrollierende Partner in mehr als 370 ILPs war.
- In bestimmten Fällen könnten ILP sowohl für Ein- und Ausfuhren in als auch aus einer Vielzahl von Ländern, vor allem aber aus Russland und der Ukraine, festgestellt werden. Es konnten keine Informationen über ihre wahren Besitzer gesammelt werden.
Laut Declan de Lacy, einem Restrukturierungspartner der Dubliner Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft PKF O’Connor, Leddy & Holmes, haben ILPs es Partnern in der Vergangenheit ermöglicht, in ein Unternehmen zu investieren, während sie ihre Haftung auf den von ihnen beigesteuerten Betrag begrenzten. Sie haben sich als nützlich für Investmentfonds, Familienpartnerschaften und Immobilieninvestitionen erwiesen, sagte de Lacy, wobei die Steuern nur von den Partnern auf ihren Anteil am Gewinn gezahlt werden.
de Lacy fügte jedoch hinzu, dass ILPs auch zu einer effektiven Möglichkeit geworden sind, ein Unternehmen zu gründen, dessen wirtschaftlicher Eigentümer nicht leicht identifiziert werden kann. “Die Partner können und sind oft alle Unternehmen aus Jurisdiktionen, die vollständige Anonymität zulassen und aus Compliance-Sicht als hohes Risiko angesehen werden”, sagte er.
Graham Barrow, ein in Großbritannien ansässiger Experte für Kommanditgesellschaften, sagte, dass diejenigen, die hinter ILPs stehen, nur “sehr begrenzte Informationen darüber bereitstellen müssen, wer sie sind, es gibt keine Anmeldeanforderungen, keine Überprüfung; Es sind nur ein paar Namen auf ein bisschen Papier und eine Adresse. Das wird also zu einer wunderbar undurchsichtigen Methode, um Eigentum und Kontrolle zu verbergen.”
Was genau ist eine irische Kommanditgesellschaft?
ILPs entstand als Teil des britischen Limited Partnerships Act von 1907. Zu dieser Zeit war Irland noch ein Teil des Vereinigten Königreichs.
Das gleiche Gesetz brachte Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) ins Leben, ein Firmenvehikel, das ausschließlich in Schottland zu finden ist. Bellingcat hat zuvor eine Reihe von Berichten über den angeblichen Missbrauch von SLPs erstellt, nachdem eine Reihe von hochkarätigen Geldwäscheprogrammen ans Licht gekommen war.
Dazu gehört ein Betrug, der 2014 schätzungsweise 1 Milliarde US-Dollar illegal von Banken in Moldawien abgezogen hat. Im Jahr 2017 wurden zwei SLPs verwendet, um Milliarden aus Aserbaidschan zu leiten, um sie für Luxusgüter auszugeben und politischen Einfluss in Europa zu gewinnen. SLPs spielten eine wichtige Rolle im russischen Waschsalon-Skandal, bei dem 20,8 Milliarden Dollar über ein Netzwerk von Banken weltweit aus Russland abgezogen wurden.
SLPs, like ILPs, had limited filing requirements and did not require the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of the partnership – the person who ultimately controls a business – to be named.
SLPs could also be registered to companies in secrecy jurisdictions – adding another layer of opacity to shield the true identity of a company’s owner. In 2016, at least 71% of all new SLP registrations were controlled by companies in secrecy jurisdictions.
New person of significant control (PSC) rules were introduced in the UK in 2017 in an attempt to ensure the true beneficial owners of SLPs would have to be revealed. Further investigations after this legislation was enacted found that the vast majority of beneficial owners of SLPs were based outside in the UK, mostly in Ukraine and Russia.
The number of SLPs registered dropped after legislation that required beneficial owners to be named was passed.
SLP numbers soon began to dwindle.
ILPs, however, were not covered by this new legislation (given the Republic of Ireland has now long been independent from the UK) and still offered similar benefits to those originally offered by SLPs. From 2015, their numbers began to increase sharply.
When asked about this rise, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Department for Enterprise, Trade and Employment told The Sunday Times that the reasons for this were not entirely clear but Brexit and a tightening of the UK LP [limited partnership] regime could have been a contributory factor.
Irish Limited Partnership registrations since 2006.
Some of the same formation agents that Bellingcat previously identified setting up SLPs began to register ILPs around this time. Among the most prodigious was LAS Fiduciary, which set up roughly one in five of the nearly 676 newly created ILPs in 2017. Records for LAS Fiduciary reveal that one of its directors was also an officer at the similarly named LAS International (UK). LAS International (UK) was itself the formation agent for 39 ILPs between 2015 and 2021, including Bitsane.
Bellingcat has written about LAS International (UK) previously after it registered 1,632 SLPs over a two year period.
Emailed responses to questions sent by Bellingcat to a contact address on LAS Fiduciary registration documents, and signed off by a Ms Elena Yael Dovzhik (who identified herself as a former director of LAS Fiduciary and LAS International), said that both companies had terminated operations and had filed for voluntary dissolution last year.
Still, she said that all Know Your Customer (KYC) checks had been carried out when they had been operational, that as a formation agent they had never been involved in any of the business activities of their clients and that if a beneficial owner was accused of illegal activity their services were terminated. All beneficial owners were declared when required, she added, and that they have always responded to police investigative queries.
Yet Dovzhik’s emailed comments also stated that: “we are aware that many years ago we filed registration documents for some companies that eventually were accused in unlawful activities, but such information was not available to us prior registration”. It added that “this is a problem of any company formation or filing agents as there is always a certain percentage of potentially unlawful businesses of any type or form”.
As a formation agent, Dovzhik said they could not have expected company owners to have abused ILPs in the way that they did. The same was true for any SLPs that may have been abused, she said, and that they would “never provide any service to a company that was used for unlawful activities”.
LAS International terminated all services to Bitsane when the company became aware of the scam via news reports, Dovzhik said. She added that if there was any police request “we would have provided them with all relevant information that is allowed to be disclosed to certain authorities”.
There is no suggestion that LAS International, LAS Fiduciary or anyone employed at these organisations acted outside the law. The full emailed responses from Dovzhik can be seen at the bottom of this article. Records show that LAS International (UK) has been dissolved.
ILPs From the Seychelles to Belize
The attractiveness of ILPs to individuals or organisations who appear to have no connection to Ireland is clear from the data analysed by Bellingcat and The Sunday Times.
Just under 800 ILPs that were registered during the period monitored by Bellingcat (between 2015 and 2021) had an Irish general partner – making up less than a third of the total formed.
In total, 501 of the ILPs registered in 2017 alone were controlled by general partners based in the Seychelles or Belize. This amounted to 74% of the ILPs registered in 2017.
At that time, both countries were included on an EU tax jurisdiction watchlist, although they have since been removed. General partners of ILPs formed between 2015 and 2021 were also based in other countries with limited reporting requirements such as the British Virgin Islands, Panama and the Cayman Islands.
While many legitimate businesses may choose to structure themselves in this way and there is nothing wrong with forming a company in this manner, experts say the discretion such setups provide can also be beneficial to those with more nefarious aims.
Barrow said that the aim of money launderers, scammers and international criminals was to build a complex, multi-jurisdictional web that cannot be traced. “You could have an Irish Limited Partnership but it is owned by a couple of Marshall Islands companies, and they bank in the Baltics, and the controllers of those companies might themselves be Panamanian,” he said. That kind of complexity “makes it impossible to do any form of law enforcement.”
John Devitt, chief executive of Transparency International Ireland, said he would be “very surprised” if Irish Limited Partnerships were not being used by international criminals given “they allow for companies registered in jurisdictions with weak rule of law to form the partnerships.”
Although Bellingcat was eventually able to identify a disproportionate number of Ukrainian and Russian nationals controlling SLPs in previous investigations, it was not possible to draw such firm conclusions with ILPs given the limited data on beneficial owners currently available. However, some ILPs did appear to be enabling companies to bypass Person of Significant Control (PSC) requirements in the UK.
As many as 51 ILPs were named as PSCs for UK companies, almost all of which were SLPs. All of the 51 Irish partnerships in question had general partners based abroad, either in Bulgaria or Belize.
While this practice is not illegal, it does potentially appear to get around the spirit of ensuring persons of significant interest are detailed for UK companies.
Unlike the UK, Ireland is a European Union member and has transposed the EU’s fifth anti-money laundering directive into law, setting up a register of beneficial ownership for companies.
However, ILPs fall outside the scope of these regulations which only refer to corporate and legal entities that are incorporated. Unless the partners of an ILP are themselves such entities there is no requirement to reveal this information.
The Price of Transparency
Obtaining what data there was for Bellingcat’s previous investigations into SLPs proved to be far easier than gathering the same information for ILPs.
Companies House, which hosts information about businesses in the UK is free to browse and all data held there can be downloaded at no price. The same level of detail in corporate documents for Irish entities must be purchased.
For every document requested, a price of 2.50 Euros ($2.67) was applied, ensuring a further barrier to investigation given thousands of documents were required to conduct a thorough analysis. Bellingcat purchased the formation documents for every ILP registered since the beginning of 2015 – when ILP registrations shot up rapidly – at a cost of 6,000 Euros ($6,300) with funds provided by an Investigative Journalism for Europe grant.
This data was collated to show details of partners, their location and their formation agents.
Bellingcat also searched for the business activities of every partnership, to ascertain whether there were any potential red flags surrounding illicit or suspicious activities.
More than 600 of the roughly 2,400 ILPs registered since 2015 have an online presence of some kind. Some were clearly legitimate businesses, including hedge funds, financial investment ventures and even a sourdough bread business. But questions remained over others.
For example, dozens of those 600 websites contained no clear indication of what the ILPs actual business was. No contact details were displayed other than the address of the registered office, which was often just a mailing address. Some of the sites appeared to be filled out with stock photographs and other generic imagery.
Bellingcat also put the name of each ILP in its database into ImportGenius, a website that tracks international import and export data, yielding a large number of results. The names of ILPs could be found attached to imports and exports to and from a variety of countries, but predominantly Russia and Ukraine.
One company was recorded as having traded with a subsidiary of a state-owned mining company in Russia. A further 71 ILPs appeared to be acting as trade intermediaries for shipments of goods coming out of Russia and Ukraine. Four ILPs formed during a short time period by the same formation agent, meanwhile, shared their name with companies in Russia that operate crude oil tankers.
Again, none of these companies were required to reveal their beneficial owner and no further information could be discovered about them.
Other ILPs included a dating platform that advertised Ukrainian women to foreigners, a Russian app that claims to promote job offers in the modelling field, a Russian “webmodel agency” and a Russian visa service. There is no evidence suggesting any of these companies are engaged in illegal activities.
One individual based in the Seychelles was a partner in close to 150 ILPs. In 2018, one of these ventures was subject of a press release by the Central Bank of Ireland warning that it was an unauthorised investment firm. The formation agent for this ILP was LAS Fiduciary. When asked about this Dovzhik said by email that it operated as a virtual filing agent for international corporate clients such as lawyers and accountants and that it was never involved in any of its former clients’ business activities. It added that it was not aware who identified this client as an unregulated financial agent, nor when this happened, and that it only assisted clients with their formation process and filings.
ILPs for sale
Irish Limited Partnerships in and of themselves also appear to be a lucrative business.
Some were found being advertised on a variety of websites and spreadsheets online. ILPs were advertised in Russian, suggesting they were being targeted at an audience in that country or in the nations of the former Soviet Union where many residents also speak Russian.
A spreadsheet with Russian titles and headings found online advertising ILPs.
The cost of registering an ILP is less than 50 euros, but to buy a partnership from a formation agent off-the-shelf (with an existing track record of operation) the cost can run into hundreds or even thousands of Euros.
A screen grab shows ILPs for sale on a Russian language website.
Authorities in Ireland have no mechanism to control the activities of websites in Russia selling their corporate vehicles.
On some websites, various administrative functions are advertised to assist customers with corporate filings, the provision of registered offices and due diligence filings. It is thus entirely possible that the true beneficial owners of these partnerships will never need to register their name on any document related to the business.
The lack of a need for Irish residency for partners, the advantage of having a company in an EU country and tax advantages are all touted as selling points of ILPs on these websites. The value of using corporate entities as partners is also detailed.
A spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE), which oversees the CRO, told The Sunday Times that it was “currently conducting a review of the Limited Partnership Act 1907 and that review will consider the issue of beneficial ownership and how best to ensure transparency”.
It added: “This review is due to conclude shortly, with a view to bringing a General Scheme to Government as soon as possible.”
Without a more robust system of due diligence or a register of beneficial owners for ILPs, however, the threat of another Bitsane-type scam remains.
Full Emailed Responses from Elena Dovzhik
Your request was forwarded to us regarding former activities of LAS FIDUCIARY in Republic of Ireland, as all of our companies fully terminated their business activities while ago.
Thank you for your email and an opportunity to have our say in this unpleasant situation with our former clients.
We are not sure who and when identified LAS FIDUCIARY’s client’s activity as “an unauthorised investment firm” as LAS FIDUCIARY only operated as virtual filing agent in the Republic of Ireland, on behalf of international corporate clients (such as International Lawyers and Accountants). We never been involved in any business activities of our former clients and only assisted our clients with their company’s formation process and filings.
While other journalists and investigators are making their assumptions, without full understanding of company formation and-mail forwarding services industry, we would like to clarify that at the sale point of our services we are obliged to collect all KYC information (according to AMLR) and our clients only declare to us their intentional business activities for newly incorporated companies, before their bank accounts are being open and their trading activities start.
All companies had to declare their Beneficial Owners (if applicable) before any filing order was accepted by our representatives.
Yes, we are aware that many years ago we filed registration documents for some companies that eventually were accused in unlawful activities, but such information was not available to us prior registration. This is a problem of any company formation or filing agents as there is always a certain percentage of potentially unlawful businesses of any type or form i.e LTD, LLP, LP, etc.
The popularity of LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS in the UK & Republic of Ireland was explained to us by the low cost of their annual maintenance, as there is not legal requirements for them to file Annual Financial Statement and in most cases absence of Annual Return filing requirement (unlike LTD). But we could not expect that this form of company (LP) will be abused by its owners in unlawful ways.
How the company formation agents can be responsible for this is they do all KYC checks before any trading starts? Please clarify to us any logic behind the accusation for LAS INTERNATIONAL being the formation agents of companies such as BITSANE and defrauding thousands of people? This information came to light after any formation/filing services were provided to this company and any further services were terminated with immediate effect for such clients. We always responded to any police investigative queries with requested KYC information and never supported any unlawful business activities of our former clients.
We had enhanced Due diligence for all international clients and collected all required KYC information. If any of our clients was ever reported to us as being under suspicion of being involved in unlawful activities , their services were terminated with immediate effect , as this is a breach of our Terms & Conditions. Yes, we cooperated with professional intermediaries-resellers (such as Lawyers and Accountants) from worldwide, who requested and purchased our services for their multiple individual clients. Many of them were from Eastern Europe and are considered as “high risk”. The Company/LP/Partnership’s structure is always decided by the client/owner and we never been involved in this decision making process.
Due to negative publicity and abusive use of LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS by international clients we stopped providing this type of entities with any further filing services.
——-
I personally was not approached by anyone in relation to the legal proceedings against this company [Bitsane]. But if there was any police request in relation to this company, we would have provided them with all relevant information that is allowed to be disclosed to certain authorities. We found out about this issue from media publications and terminated any further services with immediate effect.”
All KYC information was obtained by our team before any services were provided to these clients and this company was formed in 2016. Declaration of Beneficial Owner is part of any KYC compliance process (if this was applicable ). According to GDPR we are only allowed to disclose this information to specific authorities.”
Yes, we assisted with filings of incorporation forms for Scottish Limited Partnerships years ago. At that time, we did not expect that this type of company will be abused in such way, as we attributed their popularity to the low annual maintenance cost (absence of annual filing requirements for Limited Partnerships).
Usually, we were notified by a police department on investigation process against some companies that used our mail-forwarding address or sometimes this information comes to us from media publications. As I mentioned before, we terminated our services with immediate effect for such companies as this is breach of our Terms & Conditions. We would never provide any service to a company that was used for unlawful activities, as this was not the original reason declared to us by the clients, prior the company’s formation/filings.”
Due to negative publications and frequent police requests in relation to Limited Partnerships we terminated any further formation filings for this type of companies. LAS International (former name) and LAS Fiduciary filed for voluntary dissolution during last year. This also relates to our partner’s company Company Formation Advice Ltd.
Logan Williams contributed to this story.
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