Trying to understand the financial crisis since 2008 economists have learned that large parts of the economy are hardly known and little explored. This is especially true for the area of the so-called shadow banks. Here - and not in the traditional banks - the crisis has manifested and they were saved from collapse by the central banks. But behind the shadow banks is the even more unknown zone of the offshore economy, since many shadow banks are legally settled in "tax and regulatory havens". They can be called secrecy jurisdictions as well. Their aim is to establish a high level of financial opacity, e.g. by banking secrecy laws, by establishing trusts and foundations whose ownership and purpose is difficult to identify, or by a lack in serious due diligence or no records and statistics on transactions.

The book provides first information about a little-studied area. What is the importance of the offshore economy? Is online Gambling a Game Changer to Money Laundering? What is the rationale behind the Secrecy Index of Tax Justice Network? How does Automatic Tax Information Exchange function? Is Austria a tax haven? With which ideology and with which narratives was it possible to avoid public discussions about the offshore economy? Which were the effects of "offshore leaks” in the spring 2013?