<nettime> 200k Caymans companies hijacked to democratize offshore business - Press Release

[Paolo Cirio <press.paolo.cirio@gmail.com>]

Loophole for All - Loophole4All.com
Press Release. NYC, 15th February 2013.

Paolo Cirio, contemporary artist and pirate, hacked the governmental
servers of the Cayman Islands and stole a list of all the companies
incorporated in the country, making it public for the first time. Now
on Loophole4All.com he is selling the identities of those companies at
a low cost to democratize the privileges of offshore businesses.

Paolo hijacks the identities of more than 200,000 companies registered
in the Cayman Islands by moving their addresses to his Caymans mailbox
and issuing counterfeited certificates of incorporation from the
Caymans company registry. This massive corporate identity theft
benefits from the anonymous nature of those companies since the real
owners’ secrecy allows anybody to impersonate them. In short, this
project turns the main feature of offshore centers into a
vulnerability.

Through Loophole4All.com, anyone can hijack a Caymans company, from
99¢ for a certificate of incorporation for a real company to $49 for a
mailbox in the offshore country with mail rerouting. Finally, small
businesses and middle class people can invoice from the major offshore
centers and avoid unfair taxes, legal responsibility and economic
disruption in their own indebted home countries, in a form of global
civil disobedience.

For this operation, the artist set up a company in the City of London
as a shield for legal persecution and to compete in the market against
offshore centers. He utilizes aggressive business strategies for a
political work of art and reverses corporate machination for creative
subversive agendas. With the money generated by selling companies'
identities, Paolo plans to expand his business into Bermuda, Jersey,
the Seychelles, and Delaware, among others.

Further, Paolo Cirio interviewed major experts and produced a video
documentary investigating offshore centers, where he shares his
extensive research and conclusions about offshore business:
http://Loophole4all.com/doc.php

In the offline art installation, the paper trail of the project is
displayed with prints of the documents of the scheme set up for the
operation. Ultimately, the installation will be a low cost identity
shop for offshore companies, and in doing so democratize both offshore
business and the sale of subversive works of conceptual art.

Watch the introductory-meme video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qGg7YIvnMQ

Quick notes:
- The Cayman Islands are second only after Switzerland in the global
Financial Secrecy Index.
- The Caymans state is considered to be one of the major offshore
centers for high finance and the global economy.
- Among the several thousand anonymous companies in the Caymans you
will find most of the major global multinationals, Chinese businesses,
criminal organizations and all the major global banks.
- There is neither real money in the Caymans nor a real market.
Caymans companies are only booked on paper.
- The Cayman Islands is a British crown colony situated 150 miles
south of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea.

In the next months you will find Paolo Cirio's works at:
- Public Private exhibition at Kellen Gallery of The New School, New York - U.S.
- The Big Picture, exhibition at Contemporary Museum of Denver, Colorado - U.S.
- MediaCities festival, exhibition, Buffalo - U.S.
- Eastern Bloc festival, exhibition, Montreal - Canada
- ISEA 2013, keynote, Sydney - Australia

Thanks for the attention.
http://PaoloCirio.net


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