Page 83 of A Death in Cornwall

“Harris is British and Weber is from Zurich. They met in the early nineties while working on behalf of the same client and decided to start their own firm. Neither one of them has ever seen the inside of a courtroom. They’re in the business of helping companies and wealthy individuals reduce their tax burdens by moving their assets to offshore financial centers.”

“And Robinson?”

“He joined the firm in 2009.”

“From where?”

“The counterintelligence division of MI5.”

“Why did a garden-variety law firm specializing in offshore financial services feel the need to hire a former MI5 officer to handle its security?”

“Because Harris Weber is anything but a garden-variety firm. Its clients include some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Some of the most dangerous as well. When dealing with such people, it pays to have a man like Trevor Robinson on the payroll.”

“Not to mention Philippe Lambert.”

“For the record, I am not an employee of Harris Weber. I am an independent contractor with a single client, a company called Antioch Holdings. It’s a limited liability entity based in the British Virgin Islands. Antioch pays me several million dollars a year, the vast majority of which remains hidden in offshore accounts. I also have use of an apartment in Monaco and a luxury villa on Virgin Gorda.”

“And what sort of services do you provide this client?”

“Nominally?” Lambert shrugged. “Network security.”

“And in reality?”

“The same job I did for the DGSE.”

“Electronic intelligence collection?”

“Oui, Monsieur Allon. And other special tasks.”

***

To understand the nature of those tasks required Lambert to offer a fuller explanation of Harris Weber & Company and the strategies it used to serve its clients. They were, for the most part, the richest of the rich, billionaires many times over who traveled on private jets and superyachts and maintained lavish residences in every corner of the globe. Rarely, however, were they the owners of record of their expensive toys and properties. Instead, they acquired the symbols of their immense wealth using limited liability shell companies created by Harris Weber. These companies were nominally headquartered not in Monaco but in Road Town in the British Virgin Islands, where the firm maintained a small but busy office on Waterfront Drive. A secretary in the office, a certain Adele Campbell, served as the director of these corporate entities.

“At last count,” said Lambert, “she controlled more than ten thousand companies, which would make her one of the most powerful businesswomen in the world. The real owners of the LLCs are known only to the firm’s lawyers.”

Buying homes and other luxury goods behind the cloak of an offshore shell company, Lambert pointed out, was perfectly legal and had numerous advantages, beginning with the tax savings. But it also allowed the superrich clients to conduct their affairs in secret, invisible to the prying eyes of government, law enforcement, and their fellow citizens. This was the world that Harris Weber & Company offered its clients. It was an exclusive world without rules or taxes where the needs of the less fortunate were of no concern.

“Fifteen years ago the total amount of wealth in private hands worldwide was about a hundred and twenty-five trillion dollars. It is now four hundred and fifty trillion dollars, approximately ten percent of which is held in offshore financial centers where it is beyond the reach of tax collectors. Which means the money cannot generate tax revenue to provide better schools or housing or health care for ordinary citizens.”

Most of the firm’s clients, Lambert continued, came by their fortunes legitimately or through inheritance and were determined to employ every measure legally available to them to avoid the payment of taxes—even if those measures were at best ethically questionable and might well have led to reputational damage if disclosed to the broader public. A significant portion of Harris Weber’s clientele, however, earned their money through criminal activity or by stealing it from their citizens. The firm represented nine kleptocratic heads of state, dozens of corrupt government officials, and numerous Russian billionaires who had grown rich through their proximity to the Kremlin. Much of their ill-gotten money was invested in real estate, which they purchased using offshore shell companies.

“Do you know why most ordinary citizens can’t afford to live in cities like London or Paris or Zurich or New York? It is because the global superrich are bidding up the prices of real estate with the help of offshore providers like Harris Weber. One client alone, a Middle Eastern potentate who shall remain nameless, purchased more than a billion dollars’ worth of commercial and residential property in London and Manhattan while hidden behind a complex web of LLCs and layered trusts created and secretly managed by the firm. And when the potentate decided to sell some of that property at a profit, the transactions took place offshore, with Harris Weber pocketing several million dollars in fees.”

The firm grew wildly rich, as did its many business partners—especially the European wealth managers and private bankers who were an invaluable source of clients. Harris Weber promised everyone absolute secrecy, but inevitably problems arose. When they did, Trevor Robinson gave the names to Philippe Lambert, and Lambert lit them up and sucked them dry.

“Phones, computers, medical and financial data. Anything I could lay my hands on. I gave the material to Robinson, and he used it to make the problems go away.”

“He blackmailed them?”

“The lucky ones. The ones who didn’t get the message he dealt with in other ways.”

“Who were they?”

“Anyone who posed a threat to the firm’s business or its clients.”

“Such as?”

“Tax officials, regulators, investigative journalists, sometimes even the clients themselves.”

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