[fred_durst]

Its generally a collection of companies in various countries. They take advantage of the fact that each country has unique laws. By stringing them together you can eventually make it impossible to track to it's original source. It's kind of like one way encryption in a really stretched analogy.

[benologist]

It seems like you could just fly around obtaining or suing for the information, so it's not really impossible it's just too expensive because the data's not online yet?

[fred_durst]

I'm not quite sure about that. From my understanding you can do it in a way where eventually you lose the trail. Because of the legalities of what information each country shares, if you get it in the right order you can prevent it from leading all the way back.

[puddinghead]

Not as simple as that. You want to find the ultimate beneficiary and that can be hidden behind numerous layers.

E.g. I set up a trust and appoint a law firm to handle my affairs (I can already hide behind client attorney confidentiality). My lawyer sets up an offshore company and appoints nominee officers. That company sets up another offshore corporation in another jurisdiction again with nominee officers. Etc.

To get back to me you would have to find company information, find who those nominee officers represent (which would require international warrants) and follow the trail. Rinse and repeat until you eventually get to my lawyer who still has few ways of preventing you finding my name.

And you can do many more layers of hiding than the three illustrated here

[bsder]

Obviously, with enough resources the information can be extracted. The US or Russia clearly have enough resources to either dig through technically or simply threaten to murder those who don't cooperate.

However, the real issue is that very powerful people are using these techniques. So, governments have to worry that they're going to accidentally trip over somebody who is powerful enough to cause problems. If you are a bureaucrat examining what you think are low-level offenders but accidentally stumble onto something held by Vladimir Putin, you're going to bury that post haste so as not to endanger your life.

[67726e]

> The US or Russia clearly have enough resources to either dig through technically or simply threaten to murder those who don't cooperate.

A government is not going to threaten to murder folks for not turning over some financials. I think you've been reading too much Tom Clancy.

[BorisMelnik]

I would say yes to this. If the case is big enough, like the someone assassinated the leader of a large country they could pull enough strings or threaten to embargo etc.