Thoughts on financial anonymity Part 1. Theory

We have already written about technical anonymity on the Internet , which is achievable by various means, from simple, to the most serious and resistant to deanoninization, at the most serious level. But the narrow stumbling block of any technical anonymity is financial anonymity, even partial. This includes both the anonymity of ownership of various: shares, accounts and companies, as well as the anonymity of the transfers themselves, even to third parties who have nothing to do with these transfers.

Let us immediately agree that we are not terrorists, we do not have Colombian money and we have never done anything like this. This is not a tricky EULA. It really is. We are ordinary people who open ordinary and sometimes successful companies that work and earn something. Our goal is not how to circumvent the rules of the game, our goal is to play by the rules and stay within the framework of existing laws, but it is desirable to be anonymous, at least in front of third parties.
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In order to better understand the current state of affairs and the possibility of at least partially achieving the financial anonymity and anonymity of translations, you need to go back a little and look into the essence of the problem, from where the deanonymization of the now massively growing legs grow.

Until 2001, many companies in the world were built on the principle of the so-called bearer share, that is, bearer shares, a very common practice. There was no need to be, neither a shareholder, nor a director of the company, one could not be anyone in it at all. The one who had the physical shares of the company, he could claim a share in the company and de facto participated in the distribution of its profits. Although the pressure itself on “anonymous actions” began in the 90s, everything changed dramatically after the 9/11 attacks. A number of legislative acts in the United States were adopted, significantly complicating the anonymous possession of different companies and transfers in USD, without banks understanding the real goals and the real beneficiaries of the company. All bank transfers in the world, in dollars, are carried out through the SWIFT system, and SWIFT is controlled exclusively by America. In fact, a year later, in many jurisdictions there were no bearer shares left, and where they remained, the rules of the game changed, for example, like this:

The new regime does not prohibit the companies from issuing bearer shares, but establishes a requirement to transfer them for storage to an “authorized or recognized trustee. In addition, for companies wishing to issue bearer shares, higher registration and licensing fees are set.

In practice, this means that the issued shares were transferred for storage to a guarantor, who was certified by the state and international regulatory bodies, who knew who their owner was and if necessary informed this information. That is, there is no real meaning in the “anonymous shares”, because there is no anonymity of these shares. Accordingly, after these changes, it was no longer possible to talk about the real anonymity of ownership of the company and accounts through bearer shares, since all information was kept in the register of its registered jurisdiction.

But if somewhere departed, then somewhere arrived, at about the same time, capital and companies began to look for another way out, and the registrars were ready to offer it, the demand for companies increased tremendously, with a so-called nominal director and often nominal shareholders . The real owners were hidden behind the names of John Smith, on which thousands of companies were registered and for some time it worked, because most banks did not refuse to open accounts to such companies, perfectly seeing that dozens or even hundreds of their clients, the director is one and same. Who is simpler, with modest and dubious turnover, used the services of the Baltic countries, like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Of course, there were scandals too, if there was really some kind of tin, but the accounts were opened, the money went. Who is bigger and more impressive, for example, worked with Switzerland, those, unlike the Baltic states, were interested in the origin of money only in the framework of the absence of crime, but not enough to be interested in tax issues of residents of other countries.

The next major milestone was the CDO crisis in America in 2008, better known as the mortgage. Entailing a series of different proceedings and fines for banks, for high-risk operations (and in fact for issuing unsecured loans), in the amount of banks paid about $ 236 billion in fines to the US government. The continuation of investigations probably prompted US financial inspectors to stash out money and questionable transfers. A new stage of de-anonymization has begun for account holders and companies outside the United States. In particular, it was funny how the US financial monitoring authorities found that through some kind of Latvia, 2% of all world money through the SWIFT system passes. WTF?! .. They hardly found it on a map under a magnifying glass and were stunned. The dwarf state with a population of 1.5 million people, generated such a volume in the transfer system, that on the other continent there was a natural butthurt and the Baltic banks began to suffer. Rather, they began to nightmare, Latvia, Lithuania, less Estonia.

In general, the American campaign “against tax evasion”, as it is called officially, but in fact the company with taking money “under the cap” intensified after 2009. When it became known that, for example, the Swiss UBS Group helped its clients, US citizens, to hide their savings abroad. Since then, the authorities have been able to collect more than $ 13 billion from secret offshore accounts. In general, fines, license reviews and total checks from US bodies fell on the banks of the world as if from a horn of plenty. Last year alone, the US authorities have fined 80 Swiss banks for a total of $ 1.36 billion.

Speaking of Switzerland, there is still some idea that there are anonymous bank accounts in Switzerland. In the literature, this is described as anonymous accounts with a negative rate. The negative rate is a reality, but anonymity is long gone.

Offtopic: In addition to the inconvenience for the capital owner, the negative rate has an interesting feature for the borrower, for example on a mortgage product with a floating rate, so the situation when people instead of paying the mortgage began to receive payments from the bank are real. Here is the latest article to this effect: https://geektimes.ru/post/274536/




Quite a big disappointment today to find out that, besides the fact that a zero or even negative account rate can be applied, and you need to pay about 3.5% to get your cash from an ATM, you cannot just come to a Swiss bank with money and open an account there. You need to go to a licensed registrar, and then, any Swiss bank will shake it all up. Finding out not just the origin of the funds, where you will literally confirm them with each invoice, and also ask for a full package of documents for people, even if the account is opened for the company. You may be required to get a diploma / diploma of higher education, a translated excerpt from a work book, letters of recommendation from previous work places, up to a school certificate and everything you lived and breathed until the account was opened. Ownership of real estate and car as well. Then, perhaps, you will open an account, but if you think that you can put 10,000-100,000 $ there and use it as an operating company, then this is not so. In fact, at the moment, the minimum amount from which you can open an account in "anonymous" Switzerland is 300-350 thousand francs. Most banks will not accept you with an amount less than 500 thousand, and the top ones with an amount less than 1-2 million francs / dollars, not a declining balance. Moreover, I repeat, you will be enlightened with X-rays and examined under a microscope, your company and its shareholders, at the slightest suspicion of hiding some data, you will be blacklisted forever.

In addition, it is funny and in another, that you can no longer pick up or fully operate with your money. This is a “jug”, de facto it can not be used, of course, if you buy a few flights or even a car with a card for a company, no one will tell you anything. But think you buy for example, some real estate, in some non-European or non-European country, or pay for some large contact, for example, a Chinese factory. You will be told something like the following: - Your counterparty gives us doubts, give its charter and all the information on the owners and structure of the company. Which, of course, no Chinese factory will give, but if suddenly ... Next level: show the translated statement of taxes paid by him and audits of this company conducted by international institutions, let's say ... Next will be: -And show us certificates for all shareholders, their certificates in school and so on in the same vein. What translates from Swiss to Russian roughly as - go to hell. Switzerland works in one direction, there it is possible to bring there, but only a lot, and it is possible to take out from there a little, and a lot is very difficult. Although I lie a little, SEPA transfers from Switzerland go, within the EU and proven, large counterparties are excellent, but this doesn’t mean that you don’t take out your soul for these transfers ... And so on the SWIFT translation around the world ... they are Americans, oh fear.

Such a long prelude was needed for you to understand a little how the world of banking, transfers and company owners work now. Now we get down to earth and try to understand what this means for us in practice? And that means something like the following. The owners of any electronic payment system are not anonymous in front of their bank, even if they use a chain of companies to open an account in a bank or connect a merchant, in reality they reveal the identities of all real owners of a company for this bank. If the owners of EPS and the owners of the bank, then they are now afraid of local control authorities, and those in turn are afraid of regional or global. Suffice it to recall how the WebMoney system began, with formal certificates, lack of limits and decent anonymity. Suffice it to recall how the anonymous Egold fell under the charges of money laundering and in all the unproven grave ones, you can recall the closure of Liberty, with the arrest of its owners. Because I quote “the only freedom that this company afforded to its customers is the freedom to commit crimes”. So, with a light hand, one prosecutor recorded all Liberty's clients as criminals, and the anonymity of transfers to crime. As it was before, so it will be after that. Any EPS that tried to provide functionality for conditionally anonymous transfers and even if it was partially untied from banks as a defense, as soon as it became more or less popular it was closed by regulators, and all that were not acceptable and not cooperative were sent to jail.

Accordingly, the remaining payment systems gradually and over time began to demand complete de-anonymization of their customers, making an exception only for those whose turnover does not exceed the profit from the sale of turbo chewing gum inserts. This is really a dead end from which there is no way out. Rather, large capitals for partial anonymization are now used by various foundations, trusts, smaller ones, some proxies, but in principle there is no longer any real anonymity.

But as you know, if somewhere departed, then somewhere arrived. It was when he became needed and it became finally clear that simple centralized EPS / Banks are not suitable for anonymity, due to the pressure of regulators who, by “laundering and crimes” as priests in the name of God, punish objectionable things and Bitcoin appeared. Moreover, he did not just appear, but strenuously advanced.

In the second part of the article we will talk about cryptocurrencies and practice before a partial and possible anonymization of transactions, as well as about what is happening now in Russia, in particular about the KIK law .

Be anonymous!