Offshore

Offshore is an exploration of perhaps the most mysterious aspect of global society today: the shadowy, semi-legal realm of offshore banking and finance.

The world of "offshore" is one of dummy companies, secret bank accounts, tricky foreign registries, and the like, which allow giant corporations—such as Wal-Mart, BP, and Citigroup—to keep huge profits out of sight of investors, regulators, and the public.

Whether in the Cayman Islands or the redoubts of the Islamic financial center of Labuan, Malaysia, offshore is where the game of profit and loss is played. A third of the world's wealth is held offshore. Eighty percent of international banking transactions take place there. Half the capital in the world's stock exchange is "parked" offshore at some point.

Trained as a reporter and a private investigator, William Brittain-Catlin tells the story of how tax havens have become central to global finance today; in so doing, he takes us into the secret operations of Enron and Parmalat, behind international trade disputes, and into organized crime and terror networks, providing disquieting evidence that, through offshore practices, the key value of capitalism and civilization alike—freedom—is being put in grave danger.