Prior to Dorian's arrival in the Lesser Antilles, local governments issued various tropical cyclone warnings and watches across the islands. LIAT cancelled multiple flights across the Lesser Antilles due to the storm and airports across the Virgin Islands temporarily suspended operations. Many of the threatened islands suffered devastating impacts in 2017 from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, lending to greater vigilance. In Barbados, thirty-eight shelters opened island-wide, with 103 residents seeking refuge in them. All public services were suspended for the duration of the storm. Homeless persons were transported to shelter by emergency personnel. On August 26, St. Lucia prime minister Allen Chastanet announced that the nation would "shut down" for the duration of Dorian. In Dominica, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit ordered all public sector workers to remain home and prepare for the storm. The Ministry of Public Works mobilized heavy machinery and the police were placed on high alert.
The leaked documents indicate that about US$2 trillion has passed through the firm's hands. Several of the holding companies that appear in the documents did business with sanctioned entities, such as arms merchants and relatives of dictators, while the sanctions were in place. The firm provided services to a Seychelles company named Pangates International, which the US government believes supplied aviation fuel to the Syrian government during the current civil war, and continued to handle its paperwork and certify it as a company in good standing, despite sanctions, until August 2015.
More InfoOver £10 million of cash from the sale of the gold stolen in the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery was laundered, first unwittingly and later with the complicity of Mossack Fonseca, through a Panamanian company, Feberion Inc. The company was set up on behalf of an unnamed client twelve months after the robbery. The Brinks money was put through Feberion and other front companies, through banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Jersey, and the Isle of Man. It issued bearer shares only. Two nominee directors from Sark were appointed to Feberion by Jersey-based offshore specialist Centre Services. The offshore firms recycled the funds through land and property transactions in the United Kingdom. Although the Metropolitan Police Service raided the offices of Centre Services in late 1986 in cooperation with Jersey authorities, and seized papers and two Feberion bearer shares, it wasn't until 1995 that Brink's-Mat's solicitors were finally able to take control of Feberion and the assets.
More InfoDavid Sutton was director of AAT Corporation and EHG Corporation when they held mineral licenses in North Korea and did business with Korean Natural Resources Development and Investment Corporation, which is under United Nations sanctions, and North Korea's "primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, responsible for approximately half of the arms exported by North Korea." The geologist, Louis Schurmann, said British billionaire Kevin Leech was key to putting the deal together. Leaked documents also reveal the involvement of another Briton, Gibraltar-based John Lister. According to ABC, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was aware of these mining deals, which had also been brought up in the Australian Senate, but nobody ever referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
More InfoThree Mossack Fonseca companies started for clients of Helene Mathieu Legal Consultants were later sanctioned by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Pangates International Corporation was accused in July 2014 of supplying the government of Syria with "a large amount of specialty petroleum products" with "limited civilian application in Syria". The other two, Maxima Middle East Trading and Morgan Additives Manufacturing Co, and their owners Wael Abdulkarim and Ahmad Barqawi, were said to have "engaged in deceptive measures" to supply oil products to Syria.
More InfoFrom August 26 to August 28, the storm affected several parts of the northernmost Lesser Antilles. Damaging winds primarily affected the Virgin Islands where gusts reached 111 mph (179 km/h). Extensive precautionary measures were taken to mitigate damage, especially in Puerto Rico, where one person died. Elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles, impacts from the storm were relatively minor. In preparation for the storm, the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia all declared a state of emergency and many coastal counties from Florida to North Carolina issued mandatory evacuation orders. Damage in the Bahamas was catastrophic due to the prolonged and intense storm conditions, including heavy rainfall, high winds and storm surge, with thousands of homes destroyed and at least 77 direct deaths recorded, 74 of which occurred in the Bahamas. The true death toll is unknown with 245 people still missing as of April 2020. Dorian is the costliest disaster in Bahamian history, estimated to have left behind $3.4 billion in damage.
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