Deloitte falsified documents to evade tax on Abramovich's wealth

> Deloitte Cyprus said it could not comment on the specific allegations because the documents were more than 20 years old and no longer accessible.

That's convenient.

Also, I received a similar response when inquiring about a financial account that had been overlooked (there are reasons, I'm not getting into it) for a couple of decades. "Can't help you. Too old for us to have records." Well, my records are printed documents. Why can't you tell me anything? Reminds me of when the USA government stole my money from a bank transfer claiming suspicion of whatever (my landlord had a Middle Eastern sounding name and it was the 2000s) and then said they had no record of it when I provided all the required documentation to recover it.

In both cases, unfortunately, I concluded that the odds are so stacked against me that I gave up. Convenient system if you're fabulously wealthy or a massive org (such as corporations and government).

Deloitte has, I've heard (!), in their training material a section about integrity and how important it is to act ethically correct. Deloitte also does sh*t like this and - again, I've heard (!) - asks its employees to bill hours on projects they are not working on so that they can maximize profits at their clients expenses. Also elephants are pink.

How this company can proceed to exist is beyond me.

For legal reasons I must emphasize that this is hear-say and should not be trusted as facts. At least one statement is a lie. What you believe is true is up to you.

Cyprus and Deloitte, why am I not surprised to see those names mentioned together in connection with alleged tax evasion?

For those who don't know, Cyprus is widely regarded as one of Europe's tax havens. And, of cause, Deloitte has offices there.

I dunno. This all implies a level of central control that doesn't reflect how professional services firms operate. Mostly they're loose partnerships and local offices and partners have the significant discretion. Even legally they're mostly not structured as a global corporation but rather a loose association of legally distinct entities.

There's a tension between having a brand that reflects trust and institutional rigor and avoiding liability for the actions of partners in some far flung jurisdiction.

This publicity is probably an actual advertising campaign for them.

I just know this will be thoroughly investigated, all responsible parties held accountable, and the proper countermeasures and applicable laws will be updated to punish and disincentivise this behaviour in the future. Just kidding.

Things change when the cost-benefit analysis moves. If you apply the law strictly and effectively, the behaviour will adjust.

Repeat offenders?

Sanction Deloitte Cyprus: don't ever except any paperwork from them again. "Sovereign state", my ass...

The Big Four really like back-dating things to help their clients. But lying is difficult because the facts come with built-in consistency. Mother Nature ensures all her arithmetic lines up properly every single time like clockwork, but when you try to make stuff up you have to do all that work and not make any mistakes.

And so it's actually easier to spot this fraud than to conduct it. What you need is people willing to go look and people willing to prosecute it even though that's uncomfortable because these crooks always have powerful friends.

Ultimately the bigger problem is the Big Four themselves. They are obviously Too Big To Fail and three of them are based in a single place, London. I believe that the Paris MOU provides us a model for how to fix this in the medium term but I've seen no political will to even look at the problem, much less address it.

A classic story, as if there was nothing new

I know this is anecdotal but I remember anywhere you went in financial or political circles in 1990s London, everyone was falling over themselves about the nouveau riche from Russia and former Warsaw Pact countries investing. There were some who said it would drive up real estate prices and some upset about lack of oversight but they were looked at in the media and by politicians as kooky or close to it. Decades later - the Panama Papers, the Epstein files and articles like this and from that journalist killed in Malta exposing corruption.

Mind-boggling what people and corporations knew and did in the shadows while we cheered on and cheer on their holdings.

This must be the first time someone important [0] has been involved in shady financial dealings. One of the joys of being in the internet era is we have much better visibility on the vast multinational web moving money around. We know that senior politicians are well aware of it because they use it to.

It would actually be reasonable if this was headline was news to Abramovich. I expect there are a bunch of standard services rendered to wealthy Russians and they just all use the same guy, who is known to get good results and no-one ever asks why. It is quite likely that there are a small group of fixers who maintain networks for certain geopolitical in-groups. They probably have excellent connections to people like Jeffery Epstein too. No surprise if the Russian circuit is actually flouting western law directly.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_named_in_the_Pa...

I think it's maybe time to consider charging those responsible with treason.

Allegations, there was no trial or verdict.

An article like like this could be auto-generated with anybody's name.

Check out the comments in r/soccer if interested -

https://old.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1x3vru3/deloitte_he...

> Deloitte Cyprus said it "acts in compliance with applicable laws".

They obviously haven't done anything wrong then.

The funniest part is that The Telegraph is simultaneously running articles on how the billionaires are leaving UK because of tax.

Do you want to have investments into London's real estate and football clubs or not? It takes sacrifices.

They (the billionaire class) all have no shame.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchfor...

Am I the only one who can’t read the article because of the paywall? Since when does BBC paywall?

BREAKING NEWS: Water is wet

... and yet he still looks cleaner than Trump. Selling early access to White House decisions to the highest bidder for (minimum) $100k/month is now responsible for about 40% of Trumps' wealth.

And that's a lower bound, assuming his commercial real estate hasn't dropped further, which is a BIG assumption given that everyone else's has, and ignoring that he's obviously going to be levered up with the interest on his loans at least tripling soon ...

Trump might have been bankrupt if he wasn't elected, especially given that commercial real estate not only has gone down significantly but there doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon that would help it out.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-donald-trumps-net-w...