Analysis
When a company was registered in Antigua, a few days later, it began to help Canadians.
“On a regular basis, tens of millions of dollars from Canadian banks was being deposited in different Antiguan bank accounts through the name of one company,” Bernard Kenney said in an affidavit for a lawsuit.
It’s a classic tax avoidance scheme, costing the country roughly $8 billion in lost tax revenues.
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Mr Kenney, along with a Canadian colleague at Rabobank, Kris Monaghan, helped set up more than 400 offshore corporations for wealthy Canadians.
Some of them are thought to have been unwitting beneficiaries of a hard-fought court victory by Canada, which made it harder for companies to hide their true owners.
But Mr Kenney says more should be done.
“I really find that all Canadians, not just Canadians in Antigua, but Canadians who are illegally evading tax should be prosecuted,” he said.
“You can’t turn a blind eye to something like this.
“All Canadians should be paying their fair share, and who deserves that more than those who have got money.”
The criminal investigation into Mr Kenney’s role as the captain of a string of offshore shipping companies collapsed in 2012.
Rabobank is still being probed by Canadian authorities for allegedly selling Bahamas tax havens to people around the world.