Inclination of letters

We tend to act in certain ways. I am no exception (as you are about to find out). Yet, before we have a go at the BBC and another go at the ICIJ, lets take another look at how Microsoft has FAILED its audience. Now, this is not out in the open and I do not really reveal what has happened, but I am making a jab at it as it will set fortunes to Adobe and this is for their eyes only. So, there I was watching several presentations in the last 24 hours (from several sources) and something occurred to me, it was the third time when I heard something. My mind started to race and suddenly I wondered why Microsoft had left all this in the open, unsolved, unattended for a DECADE. It was so out in the open that I was wondering what on earth they were doing. Yes, their 365 solution is all about making sure their customers pay, and that I fine, but to leave gaps in their office solution out in the open for over a decade, how stupid is that. Yet, no fears. Adobe will fill up that hole nicely with their adjusted suite of programs which will start a new age in corporate needs and Microsoft will be looked at with the look of ‘How could you have been this stupid to such a degree?’ Yet I will not care, I will be giggling in a corner. Watching the wannabe’s seek jobs and seek solutions. 

So now we get to the main event. It is the BBC article ‘Hidden wealth of one of Putin’s ‘inner circle’ revealed’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61028866). There is so much wrong here, I almost do not know where to start, so the beginning it is. 

We see from the start “They reveal how a Swiss tattoo artist was falsely named as owner of a company that transferred over $300m (£230m) to firms linked to Suleiman Kerimov. They also show how $700m of transactions – and the secret ownership of luxury properties – went undetected. The investigation exposes failures of the banking system and the obstacles impeding Western sanctions.” It sounds nice, it really does. But lets take a closer look, shall we? 

“Transactions worth $700m linked to Suleiman Kerimov and his closest business associates were reported as suspicious by banks between 2010 and 2015” So was anything done? Were ACTUAL crimes committed? ‘Suspicious’ is merely a word that shows no side towards legality. Then we get “Swiss accountant Alexander Studhalter posed as owner of properties actually owned by Mr Kerimov” So were laws broken? Was anything illegal done? The BBC shows itself to be as big a loser as the ICIJ shown it is. And when we get “Mr Kerimov was the secret owner of properties on the French Riviera and in London, including the most expensive terraced property ever sold in the UK” we see again the small setting ‘If he was a real secret owner, how did they find out?’ But the larger stage is whether LAWS were broken. The BBC does not really inform us of this, do they? They merely illuminate how useless journalists have become. Who is Suleiman Kerimov? I actually do not care. He is not part of my life, I never expect that to happen. But the BBC, the player claiming to be so trustworthy, where are they? Where is the list of broken laws? Where is the EVIDENCE showing us that laws were broken in Switzerland, the UK, and France? We can grasp at the Oligarch foundation all we want, but if we are a nation of laws we need to be shown the laws that were optionally (and allegedly) transgressed upon. So when we are finally given “Experts say Western countries have a lot of work to do because, for years, they have taken a lax approach to the fight against dirty money and failed to hold banks to account.” We see a clear path to something I have been stating for DECADES. Internationally tax laws need to be overhauled and politicians were lax, politicians were all about inaction and now we see the BS tap turned open all whilst we are not given the real deal. What laws were transgressed upon? I reckon that the answer will be none. I cannot tell because I am not a lawyer, I am not a tax lawyer and I am not an attorney. I have my Master of Intellectual property and when (or if) Amazon (or Google) buys my IP, my ship will arrive and I can retire nicely. Yet in this I have questions and the BBC answers none of them, so when we are finally given “In 2020, Swiru Holding accepted its involvement in evading the tax and was fined €1.4m and made to pay another €10.3m to settle the case. Mr Kerimov’s lawyer put out a statement saying that the French courts had “officially dismissed the allegations made by the former Nice Prosecutor against Suleiman Kerimov of having carried out money-laundering operations.”” We basically see a fine less then €12,000,000 for avoiding a taxable amount of €127,000,000 so as it seems crime pays and that is the part we do get to see. So when we are given how $700m of transactions were seemingly ‘undetected’ were laws broken? We are shown the transgression of 20% which was dealt with, but we have no information on the large amount and whether laws were broken. How come? We are given “The transaction was just one in a series of wire transfers carried out from 2010 to 2015 totalling $700m reported to US authorities as suspicious”, yet there is a large gap between ‘suspicious’ and ‘criminal’ and neither the ICIJ or the BBC give us anything on that, merely the alleged indignation. So is the BBC as useless as the ICIJ is showing itself to be? That is my question and I feel that this is not on James Oliver, Nassos Stylianou or Steve Swann. I believe that it is Francesca Mary Unsworth, chief editor of BBC News that needs to come forward and do some explaining on what should be seen as reporting and what should be seen as trivial filtering of news. 

I will let you decide what is what, but I reckon that the entire ICIJ mess needs a long hard look by a few people in all kinds of business walks.