The much-awaited UK Coronation episode featuring King Charles III and Queen Camilla is not really about the Coronation (although we do dish on the details). It's about the Royal Family's heaping mass of wealth and their long history of hiding it, while demanding their subjects generously fund their lifestyles. Unbeknownst to many, the most sophisticated "legal" financial arrangements in the world take place on tax shelters that answer to the British Crown. Here's what we know about how the Royal Family makes its money, takes its money, and how they conceal it from the public by creating tax havens to serve themselves and the world's wealthiest people, multinational corporations and other royal families. Why should we care? Because these networks are enriching themselves while assiduously exploiting you. 

Show notes:

https://www.thedailyupside.com/new-king-old-money/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/paradise-papers-queen-offshore-investments-royal-family-duchy-lancaster-estate-millions-tax-avoidance-a8039636.html

https://www.thedailyupside.com/uk-king-warned-of-damage-caused-by-his-tax-havens/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/05/how-the-british-royal-family-hides-its-wealth-from-public-scrutiny

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1qwpnk6j1zv70/The-Heiress-the-Queen-and-the-Trillion-Dollar-Tax-Shelter

Sam Bankman-Fried is a 30-year-old American cryptopreneur who ran a sprawling empire of 134 entities (including in Jersey) worth tens of billions of dollars from an offshore aerie in the Bahamas. With a bunch of his closest friends. Some of whom were romantically entangled. He is now denying stealing billions of dollars in customer funds from house arrest. If there’s ever been a story like this, we haven’t heard it.    BONUS: A spirited discussion on Prince Harry’s very strange memoir, “Spare,” and what we believe to be the love quotient of the UK Royal Family. 

Show Notes:

Crypto’s Tax Shelter Problem - Leah McGrath Goodman, Institutional Investor, January 11, 2023.

ftx.com

alameda-research.com

COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION, Plaintiff, v. SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED, FTX TRADING LTD D/B/A FTX.COM, ALAMEDA RESEARCH LLC, CAROLINE ELLISON and ZIXIAO “GARY” WANG Defendants. Case 1:22-cv-10503-PKC Document 13 Filed 12/21/22

FTX CEO [John Ray] Testifies on Cryptocurrency Company's Collapse - C-Span, December 13, 2022.

SBF's Substack

CFTC complaint against FTX Trading, et al.

Keeping Up with the Bankman-Frieds https://puck.news/keeping-up-with-the-bankman-frieds/ SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX

Press Release: SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX

United States Attorney Announces Charges Against FTX Founder Samuel Bankman-Fried 

Prince Harry: The 60 Minutes Interview

Spare by Harry

Mikey Guggenheim - I Like the Stock feat. Derik (Visualizer) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp_bGdp_yhc

On April 12, 2022, Jersey Police raided a number of properties linked to Russian billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich and his business activities on the island. Jersey also froze $7 billion of his assets. By November, Jersey authorities were suddenly calling their own raid "unlawful," offering a "private" apology to Abramovich and taking the liberty of destroying the materials it had confiscated in the police raid. Jersey also used funds from the public purse to pay the globally sanctioned billionaire undisclosed damages. What happened? Additional topics: Financial secrecy, Trump, television series (plural) on Jersey's scandals from 1988 to the present and the color of the Lamborghini Countach.

Show notes: The mighty Lamborghini Countach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Countach

Worldwide coverage of Roman Abramovich’s tangle with the island of Jersey

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/13/jersey-freezes-54bn-of-assets-linked-to-roman-abramovich

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2022/11/10/police-admit-conducting-unlawful-searches-at-premises-allegedly-linked-to-abramovich-and-agree-to-pay-damages-according-to-news-agency/

https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/court-documents-released-abramovich-case/#.Y5jianbMIuU

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2022/11/23/roman-abramovich-no-comment-from-jerseys-attorney-general-on-unlawful-office-raids/

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-oligarch-european-union-sanctions-lose-in-court-still-keep-money/

Jersey tries to shrug off the Roman Abramovich mess

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2022/11/21/unlawful-roman-abramovich-raids-not-damaging-to-jersey-finance-industrys-reputation/

World in Action, Episode 28, “Dirty Money” (1988): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cPNjyucEDs

French film series just out this autumn on Jersey’s scandals titled, "La Ventre de la Bête" (translation: "The Belly of the Beast"): https://www.zed.fr/en/catalog/758/screening_room/3330

Trump sues journalist over his true worth: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/that-time-trump-sued-over-the-size-of-hiswallet/2016/03/08/785dee3e-e4c2-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html

Tanya Dick-Stock lived a rarefied life of luxury, with fancy homes, collectible cars and an English butler straight from Buckingham Palace. But her life was not what it appeared to be and, when her American family moved their wealth to the island of Jersey, she lost far more than her fortune. Tanya tells an unbelievable cautionary tale of how she learned of a sprawling global fraud that began in her familial home, how she and her husband became whistleblowers -- and how she's slowly unraveling decades of lies to reveal the truths that affect us all. Side topics: Tax havens, the global wealth gap, trusts companies, trusts, income inequality, judicial corruption, the UK Royal Family, dark money, terrorism, sex-trafficking and "the second economy."

Bonus: How Tanya found clues to global financial crimes in a piece of high-end, conceptual art. 

Show notes: John W. Dick, Liberty Global, Interlock and artist Mark Lombardi

https://www.amazon.com/Interlock-Conspiracy-Shadow-Worlds-Lombardi/dp/1619025655

Citations:

Stuart Syvret. (The Spider's Web): https://youtu.be/0giulJILfn0

Show notes:

BBC Storyville: Dark Secrets of a Trillion-Dollar Island

Leah gets ready to head back to the island of Jersey – a $2 trillion UK tax shelter off the coast of France – but she has some reservations after it tried to ban her from entering for committing acts of journalism. Co-host Reggie gets her to open up. Digressions include the perils of unmasking in Vermont, ancient dolmens, the Queen’s money and whether a milquetoast is a breakfast treat.