New revelation on the assets hidden in tax havens of executives and celebrities – Telam

The presidents of Russia and Chile, Vladimir Poutine and Sébastien Piera; Brazilian Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and singers Julio Iglesias and Shakira, among many other personalities around the world, have hidden assets in offshore companies, which in some cases could have been used for the purpose of tax evasion, according to a published international journalistic investigation. this Sunday.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which involved Some 600 journalists from 117 countries and dozens of media outlets, including The Washington Post and The Guardian, have revealed the investigation dubbed Pandora Papers (Pandora Papers) on secret accounts in tax havens.

The work was based on the leak of 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Belize, Cyprus, United Arab Emirates, Singapore or Switzerland.

In the registers there are over 330 senior or former officials from 91 countries. Among them, 35 are heads or former heads of state, including 14 from Latin America, among whom, besides Piera, are the current presidents of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, and of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader.

Among the Argentines mentioned are former President Mauricio Macri; the late Daniel Muoz, who was the private secretary to President Nstor Kirchner; Zulema Menem, daughter of former president Carlos Menem; footballer Angel Di Mara; former footballer Javier Mascherano and pharmaceutical entrepreneurs Hugo Sigman and Marcelo Figueiras.

Also involved are former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, King Abdul II of Jordan; model Claudia Schiffer and football coach Josep Guardiola, Madrid newspaper El Pas and news agencies AFP, Europa Press and Sputnik reported.

In total, the ICIJ has established links between offshore assets and 336 senior executives and politicians, who have created nearly 1,000 companies, more than two-thirds of which are located in the British Virgin Islands.

The leaked documents could promote cases of bribery, money laundering or tax evasion offenses, although most of them are evidence of legal operations aimed at setting up companies to buy property.

According to the Pandora Papers, Putin owns properties in Monaco, while Lasso has a foundation in Panama that makes monthly payments to his family. and deposited funds in two trusts based in South Dakota, United States.

The King of Jordan, for example, has acquired significant properties in the UK and US worth nearly $ 93 million since he took the throne in 1999, but his lawyers say they have were purchased with private funds and that they are used for projects, for the citizen.

Also featured are the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, and six members of his family who own a network of businesses in tax havens, and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, whose environment has businesses worth millions of dollars. dollars in tax havens.

Meanwhile, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has not declared a company that owns two $ 12 million mansions in southern France, and this revelation could have immediate political consequences as his party, the Alliance of Disgruntled Citizens, is the favorite for the legislative elections of October 8 and 9.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has straw men who own companies in tax havens, and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, who bought properties in the UK for over $ 541 million and one of them was sold to the British Royal House for a profit of almost $ 42 million , was accused of plundering the wealth of his own country.

Pandora Papers follow the route of leaked documents such as the FinCen Archives, Paraso Papers, Panama Papers and LuxLeaks, but the ICIJ assures that the latter is the biggest leak, with 14 sources, nearly 12 million files and nearly three terabytes. of data.

“There has never been anything on this scale and it shows the reality of businesses in forensic havens being used to hide money and avoid paying taxes,” the spokesperson for ICIJ, Fergus Shiel.

“They use the accounts and companies of tax havens to buy real estate for hundreds of millions of dollars in their own country, to enrich their families at the expense of their citizens, ”he added.

The investigation “opens a box of many things”, which gives the leak its name.

In 2016, the ICIJ disclosed the Panam Papers investigation, supported by 11.5 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which revealed that political leaders, senior officials and celebrities had retained the firm to set up offshore companies allegedly to evade tax.

The documentation involved several personalities, including 148 politicians from 50 countries. Due to the economic and reputational damage caused by this data breach, the firm was forced to shut down its activity last March.