From Australia to India to Mexico, the FinCEN disclosure has thrown light on numerous dealings involving people across continents.

Transactions worth more than USD 100 million carried out by companies associated with the founder and chairman of Max group- Analjit Singh had been red flagged by the Standard Chartered Bank in New York. These transactions carried out in the period from July 2014 to November 2016 were between entities in India and firms located in UAE, Singapore, South Africa, Isle of Man, Cyprus and Jersey. Analjit Singh was director in some of these companies as well. These findings have appeared in the stash of the SARs disclosed recently through Buzzfeed News and ICIJ. There is a firm based in Singapore under the name LGO Pte, again with Analjit Singh as director, which has its account in the Standard Chartered bank in New York and has carried out transactions with entities classified as unknown located in jurisdictions deemed high risk. This is an interesting development given the fact that in 2012, Analjit Singh was summoned by Enforcement directorate in a case of foreign exchange violation.

The signature feature of these transactions is that they are in a circular pattern carried out through numerous shell companies with no business purpose as such.

In another case, the name of Singapore based global arm of Adani groups-Adani Global PTE crops up in the FinCEN files disclosure. This firm had used the financial networks to channel money through Seychelles. Two batches of transfers have been discovered in the disclosure, the first of these was between 2005 and 2014 in the range of around USD 6.24 billion. In this set of disclosure related to Adanis, it was found that firms based in Switzerland, Russia and Hong Kong, an Investment firm, Thionville Financier ltd with addresses in Victoria in Seychelles and Mahe had transactions with the Adani global PTE. While the spokesperson of Adani group has claimed that the transactions are legitimate, it is interesting to note that the firm Thionville Financier ltd is having the same under-construction status as it was having way back in 2013.

The role of the Shell companies is again coming at the forefront with the FinCEN disclosure. Their role in the story of Ian Taylor has been discovered recently through this disclosure. It was a common knowledge till now that this Australian businessman has been selling high end jet skis while staying at his waterfront property in Gold Coast. It has been recently dug out that he had made most of his fortune by setting up Shell companies. These shell companies have been used by arms dealers, money launderers and drug cartels based in Mexico. He had kept nominee directors and shareholders to keep the knowledge of the true ownership of his shell companies obfuscated. He has included his friends, his present and former wives, and other associates to create this layer of directors and other stakeholders. He also used the help of residents of the tax havens where these shell companies are mostly located. Though, he himself did not do anything illegal, the third party linked to his shell companies had other firms working under them. These firms are known to have links to perpetrators of crime across the world.