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.
Read More | "The latest Paolo Cirio provocation" | Bruce Sterling | Wired