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The Cayman Islands is another
misleading jurisdiction. What the
law says and what happens do not
appear to line up in this
jurisdiction. Under the Cayman
Islands Banks and Trust Companies
Law 1995 and in the Confidential
Relationships (Preservation) Law of
1995 banking staff and government
officials face civil and criminal
sanctions if information is
disclosed without authorization
which on the surface sounds good BUT
a number of laws permit the
enforcement of foreign judgments or
the disclosure of information in
response to a court order,
supposedly in the investigation of
criminal activity and drug use or
drug dealing. Additionally the
Caymans are in a number of Mutual
legal Assistance treaties. Take the
celebrated case of John M.
Masterson. He was the owner of the
defunct Guardian Bank & Trust
Limited of Grand Cayman, who
provided the IRS with over one
year's worth of Cayman bank records
on thousands of U.S. taxpayers
hiding funds; despite Cayman’s
secrecy laws and nothing seemed to
happen to him? The Caymans do not
have anonymous bearer share
corporations.
If you go to the Cayman Islands you
will see on average about 10 cruise
ships a day in the harbor. This
equates to about 25,000 tourists a
day just from cruise ships each
paying a head tax and spending say
$50 a day each on average. Then you
have the deep sea fishing, beach
front hotels on their seven mile
beach, expensive restaurants, and
other tourist attractions. The
tourism industry has proved to be
too valuable to the Caymans so they
sold out on privacy to preserve
their tourist industry. Imagine if
they were tagged as some sort of
renegade country and all tourists
returning from the Caymans started
to get detailed luggage and body
searches when arriving back home.
Well pretty soon the word would get
out and that would be the end of
their tourism industry. We can think
of no good reason to use the Cayman
Islands for anything.
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