According to a 78-page transcript of the interview Cranswick had with ATO auditors which The Insider obtained through the Australian Federal Court, Cranswick said two entities were involved in helping farmers to externalise their fortunes- Beresford Trustees and Adonis Investments.
The scheme, he said, was set up by “a crowd called Beresford Trustees”, which was administered out of the Channel Islands but had since moved to Mauritius. His contact person in Beresford was John Jamieson and it was Jamieson who set up Adonis Investments to enable Cranswick to externalise his money.
The Insider has so far failed to track down Jamieson, whom Cranswick said would be “very cagey if you ask him any questions.”
It could also not get any records on Beresford Trustees. Detailed searches revealed a company called Beresford Trustees Limited which was registered in Jersey in June 1986 and was dissolved in November 2010. The Insider could not establish whether this was the company that was helping Zimbabweans to externalise their money.
In his interview with ATO auditors Cranswick said Beresford had been based in Jersey but moved to Mauritius because of its openness in terms of tax.
“As far as I know, Beresford moved all their trust-all their trust companies to Mauritius because of the openness in terms of tax- the tax havens…That’s as far as I know, that’s exactly right, why they did it. So they just said, ‘We’re closing in Jersey and your things are going to be handled in Mauritius’. That’s what they told everyone from what I understand.”
Cranswick said he was in trouble with Barclays Bank Zimbabwe when he approached Jamieson. This was in 1999. He was facing “serious liquidation issues” and Barclays wanted to attach his personal estate. Jamieson said he knew a way Cranswick could keep the money that he had obtained after selling some shares in an IT company out of Barclays’ reach. This was through Adonis which would allow Cranswick to receive some payments.
“I am not the only one who used it, by any stretch of the imagination” he told the ATO officials. “But I even used it for- to receive my income from offshore, to manage it from there, so that it can’t get locked up in- by thieves who ran the central bank in Zimbabwe.”
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