Readers can use a new interactive database to search information about the ownership of tens of thousands of offshore entities in tax havens.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last week published a database that, for the first time in history, will help begin to strip away the secrecy across 10 offshore jurisdictions.

When Bernard Madoff built his $65 billion house of cards; when food distributors passed off horsemeat as beef lasagna in Europe; and when Apple, Google and other American companies set up structures to channel their profits through Ireland — they all used tax havens.

They bought secrecy, minimal or zero taxes and legal insulation, the distinctive products that tax havens market, and which allow companies to operate in a fiscal and regulatory vacuum. Using the offshore economy is akin to acquiring your own island where the rules that most citizens follow don’t apply.

Now, the Offshore Leaks Database allows users to search through tens of thousands of secret companies, trusts and funds created in offshore locales, such as the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands and Singapore. In addition, the Offshore Leaks web app, developed by La Nación newspaper in Costa Rica, displays graphic visualizations of offshore entities and the networks around them, including, when possible, the company’s true owners.

In particular, the web app allows readers to explore the relationships between clients, offshore entities and the lawyers, accountants, banks and other intermediaries who help keep these arrangements secret.

The database is part of a cache of 2.5 million leaked offshore files that ICIJ, a project of the Center for Public Integrity, analyzed with 112 journalists in 58 countries. Since April, stories based on the data — the largest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization — have been published by more than 40 media organizations worldwide.

E.U. Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said the ICIJ’s investigation has transformed tax politics and amplified political will to tackle the problem of tax evasion – and that the need for tax transparency overrides the principle of data privacy. And during a visit to the White House in May, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a strong pitch for tackling “the scourge of tax havens,” saying “we need to know who really owns a company, who profits from it.”

Find out more by visiting Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze.

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