For a start, the governor, Keiichi Inamine, a proud man, has blessed the offshore heliport scheme and appears unwilling to lose face.

ECONOMIST: Japan and America

"It's not just the highest-net-worth people anymore, " Hochman observes, pointing to the recent conviction of the owner of Buddy's Carpet in Cincinnati for a tax evasion scheme that involved insurance and offshore accounts in Nevis, the West Indies and elsewhere.

FORBES: End of an Era?

The scheme was perpetrated through Red Sea Management Ltd, a Costa Rican asset protection and offshore investments company founded and led by Jonathan Curshen, a dual U.S.-UK citizen residing in Sarasota, Florida.

FORBES: Cooking the Carbon Books, CO2 Tech Charged with Fraud

There have been reforms: planning changes have made local objections easier to ignore, and the subsidy scheme was tweaked on April 1st to give extra cash to more expensive technologies, such as offshore wind turbines.

ECONOMIST: Renewable energy

Under the K2 scheme, an individual resigns from their company and any salary they subsequently receive is paid to an offshore trust.

BBC: Comedian Jimmy Carr: I've made terrible error over tax