Offshore Banking Anonymously

By Aurelia Masterson of www.panamalaw.org

Introduction – By anonymous we mean the bank itself does not know who you are. They do not have
any ID for you; they do not know your name etc. You are not listed on the bank account as the
beneficiary owner or signatory. If you become the signatory or beneficiary owner then certified ID
must be presented to the bank. In any country the beneficiary owner of the account must be a natural
person. These are the bank rules that apply to any bank anywhere. If you encounter a bank that says
they do not need a person to be the beneficiary owner and/or signatory – run. It is a scam of some sort.

Offshore Trust Agreement Banking – This is the best offshore privacy solution. What is done is an
anonymous corporation is filed. The ownership of this corporation is not listed in any public registry or
database, thus the term anonymous corporation. There is a General Power of Attorney for this
corporation prepared and delivered in favor of anyone you wish. The corporation has a bank account
with online banking, a secured Visa card and an ATM card all in the name of the corporation. The
Guatemala law firm is the signatory/beneficiary owner of the bank account. The bank does not know
who you are. Your protection is the Trust Agreement. This clearly states the terms and conditions of the
trust to protect you.

Distress Clauses Contained in the Trust Agreement – You are the trustee and the law firm is the
trustor. If the trustor is objectively notified that the assets under his management are in danger, the
trustor may take actions as specifically stated in the trust agreement to safeguard the assets. These
protective measures you previously agree to in writing are part of the Trust Agreement. Of course such
clauses are always optional, but they do make sense to include them in the Trust Agreement. If you are
in distress such as in a legal battle of some sort the control of the assets can be temporarily removed
from you so that you cannot be forced to repatriate or otherwise return assets to a specific jurisdiction
by some judge. The operative term is plausible deniability. This is a complex subject requiring personal
attention form one of the attorneys which is included in our fees.

Jurisdiction – We do trust agreement bank accounts in Guatemala. They are most secure there. The
laws are extremely favorable. When you are the signatory on a regular bank account the bank knows
who you are and has your ID on file. The jurisdictions we operate in do not cooperate in tax only
matters or in any civil matter. This means your privacy is not at risk unless you are accused of a crime
by another national government that has a treaty with the country. The crime has to also be a crime in
the country that the information is being requested from as well. This concept is called dual criminality.

Guatemala will want to see evidence before cooperating in the release of information, not just an
accusation. Most information requests come from one of two countries and they rarely ever have any
evidence to present. These countries practice guilty until proven innocent law. This will not work in
Guatemala. Without evidence their requests will be denied. Using the treaty for a fishing expedition to
make a case will not work. Guatemala has favorable money laundering laws. Money laundering is the
general catch all that is used frequently in these requests for information. Guatemala has very consumer
favorable money laundering laws.
Privacy Attacks – With a regular corporate or foundation bank account if there is a request for
information in a criminal case it goes to a government official in the country where the bank account is
located. Having numerous corporations, foundations, trust etc in different countries does little good if
the bank has your identity documents on file. Investigations follow the money trail to the bank. The
government official will either reject the request for legal reasons; ask questions regarding the request
or just process the request for information by serving a request on the bank from his office for the
records. The bank has to comply with the request for information. The bank is what we call a statutory
animal. It is created by laws and regulations and lives and breathes by these laws and regulations. The
bank has no choice but to comply with the request for information or it would be in serious violation of
the banking laws. This is a condition of the banking license that the bank has with their government-
licensing agency.

The bank will normally never tell a client that their records have been requested in a government
investigation. For one thing the bank knows that the first thing the client under investigation will do is
remove their money from that country and the bank does not want that. They simply keep their mouth
shut and turn over the records. Now if you are using a trust agreement to do your offshore banking then
the bank merely turns over the law firm as the signatory and beneficiary owner of the bank account.
This is a dead end trail. Now the country requesting the records has to now contact the law firm for the
information. This is where the big difference begins.

Once contacted the law firm can and normally would contact the client and explain the request for
information. The client could then move the funds to another country. A confiscation of funds is
another matter rarely encountered. Generally these actions require court hearings. The countries we use
will be very reluctant to confiscate funds without evidentiary hearings requiring proof of malfeasance
like bank fraud, hacking into bank accounts, credit card fraud, kidnapping proceeds, etc. A request for
information is much more likely to be encountered than a confiscation request. The law firm is not
bound by the same laws as a bank. The law firm can and would normally challenge any request for
information or confiscation made to them regarding their client in a trust agreement-banking scenario.
They would refuse the request asking for probable cause and evidence.

Once again, requesting countries rarely have such evidence. They use the information collecting
process to get the evidence; they do not have it first, normally. Remember they practice law in a guilty
until proven innocent method unlike the rest of the world. So the information request from the bank
would so to speak transfer to the law firm eventually who would say it is an unnamed client behind a
trust agreement and claim attorney client privilege so as to not have to produce any records pertaining
to the client. Then the country requesting the information or confiscation would need to appear in the
courts in that country where the bank is and put on a case complete with evidence

If the prosecuting attorneys from another country appeared in the court they would also need local
lawyers licensed in that country. This is expensive. The prosecuting attorney would not be allowed to
present any testimony unless he or she waived diplomatic immunity so as to subject them to perjury,
contempt of court and other matters in the court. They normally do not waive diplomatic immunity,
which means they do not get to testify and lacking evidence, which is most often, the case there really
isn’t very much of a hearing and the matter is concluded in a few minutes in favor of the client. Well
this is how our law firms operate. So the bottom line is with trust agreement banking you have an extra
thick brick wall of security around your asset protection structure. There is nothing more anonymous to
be found in the banking systems of the world today.

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Guatemala Trust Agreement Banking