Jersey Island
I began traveling to Jersey while living and working in the United Kingdom. I fell in love with the island’s beauty and history of pirates and Viking invasions, its castles and Victorian bathing pools, its award-winning beaches and seafood, Jersey cows and Jersey cream. But I did not know about the hidden side of the island. That it’s a tax shelter, housing nearly $2 trillion of the world’s wealth. How it is a “peculiar possession” of the British Crown, with its own parliament, police, judiciary, treasury, currency and closed legal system. Or what has happened, for many decades, to the island’s children. Some of my selected writings, stories and interviews.
Stories
Exclusive: Jersey Senator Seeks Asylum in the U.S.
Exclusive: Jersey Senator Seeks Asylum in the U.S. hen Stuart Syvret arrived at an undisclosed location in the United States in 2022, he had nothing more than the shoes on his feet, the clothes on his back and a knapsack containing just a...
Island of Jersey keeps secrets of the rich and powerful
The namesake of New Jersey, the five-by-nine-mile island of Jersey is located in the English Channel off the coast of France and is a so-called “peculiar possession” of the British Crown. Neither a part of the United Kingdom nor the European Union, it is accountable to the UK Queen but governs itself.
Offshore leak exposes financial secrets of Ghislaine Maxwell’s family
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell occupied the highest reaches of society, hobnobbing with royalty and world leaders while hopscotching the globe on Epstein’s private jets.
Jersey Tax Shelter Leak Exposes Wall Street Trading Activities of Ghislaine Maxwell’s Family
Leaked documents show how Kevin and Ian Maxwell, brothers of disgraced heiress Ghislaine, used a Jersey trust to hide their business activities and finances. OCCRPJune 17, 2022Comprising 350,000 pages, the La Hougue files were discovered on the 58-acre estate of St....
The High Warren and the Dark Sea ft. Leah McGrath Goodman
Veteran investigative journalist Leah McGrath Goodman has, for a decade, studied the British channel island of Jersey, home to two trillion dollars in offshore wealth, tunnels under a hill, a Victorian children’s school, and some of the world’s darkest secrets.
Elite Criminals and Network Enablers ft. Leah McGrath Goodman
In this episode, we dive into why audiences are finally ready to hear this story – and others like it. She’s got tips for journalists on how to broach difficult, critical stories without alienating the audience.
E15: The Journalist, the Jerseymen, and the Trillion-Dollar Island (with Leah McGrath Goodman)
The Bailiwick of Jersey, the British Crown Dependency in the Channel Islands, has long been a tax haven for corporations, criminals, royals, and rich people who don’t like to pay their fair share. It’s also one of the most corrupt places in the Western world. Greg...
The Heiress the Queen and the Trillion Dollar Tax Shelter
An ugly family battle on the island of Jersey spills into the open.
Child Abuse Inquiry on Top Tax Shelter Jersey Island Delayed Again
In 2008, police unearthed the remains of at least 10 children, ages 6 to 12 years old, under a shuttered residential care home, on the island of Jersey—a territory of the British Crown, off the coast of France.
The Lost U.K. Child Abuse Testimonies
The Lost U.K. Child Abuse TestimoniesLeah McGrath Goodman Newsweek November 4, 2015nvestigators probing thousands of allegations of child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom set up a website this past summer to gather evidence. They invited...
Jersey: The Richest Offshore Tax Shelter of Them All
Much has been made of the offshore tax havens of Mitt Romney’s – one of the wealthiest men to ever to run for U.S. president – but few realize the impact of billions of dollars on the tiny islands that stash them.
Storyville 2021 – Dark Secrets of a Trillion Dollar Island: Garenne – BBC TWO
Film Dark Secrets of a Trillion Dollar Island: Garenne tells the extraordinary story of the child abuse scandal that erupted on the idyllic island of Jersey in 2007. For a long time, the victims’ voices had remained unheard, but when widespread allegations of sexual...
Survivors Question Role of U.K. Home Office in Child Abuse Inquiry
Survivors Question Role of U.K. Home Office in Child Abuse InquiryLeah McGrath GoodmanNewsweekAugust 18, 2015fter years of horrifying revelations about sexual abuse of children by people of power and influence, Britain called in a judge from New...
Thousands of Vulnerable Children Go Missing from Britain’s Protective Services
Thousands of Vulnerable Children Go Missing from Britain's Protective ServicesLeah McGrath GoodmanNewsweekMarch 3, 2015any of the child sex abuse scandals that have shocked Britain in recent years involve victims who were supposed to be under the...
Lawmakers Blast Child-Abuse Inquiry on Tax Shelter Jersey Island
Neil McMurray used to be a professional fisherman and crabber—until one of his children was repeatedly bullied in school and he found himself investigating what he began to view as a startling lack of concern for the welfare of children in his tiny island home.
Inside the World’s Top Offshore Tax Shelter
Inside the World's Top Offshore Tax ShelterNewsweek January 17, 2014 An aircraft takes off from Jersey Airport near St Peter, Jersey November 12, 2012. The idyllic aerial view of Jersey belies what is happening below.hona Pitman grew up in a rough...
Film
Dark Secrets of a Trillion Dollar Island: Garenne tells the extraordinary story of the child abuse scandal that erupted on the idyllic island of Jersey in 2007. For a long time, the victims’ voices had remained unheard, but when widespread allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced in the late 2000s, Jersey’s then health minister Stuart Syvret spoke out about the scale of this historic child abuse and the damage done to the victims.