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Leaked files of 14 offshore service providers link more than 330 public officials, including 35 global executives, to offshore fortunes.
Dozens of world leaders and hundreds of government officials have used offshore tax havens to hide assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, a huge investigation found.
The Pandora Papers, released on Sunday, are based on documents leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) and exposed the offshore transactions of kings, presidents and prime ministers, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and the Kenyan President. Uhuru Kenyatta.
The leaked documents come from 14 offshore service companies around the world – from Vietnam to Belize to the Seychelles.
Who was behind?
The ICIJ – a network of journalists and media organizations – has launched a two-year effort to sift through 11.9 million leaked confidential files, aided in the effort by more than 600 journalists from 150 media.
The team also verified the 2.94 terabyte transport information by cross-checking it with public records from dozens of countries.
The ICIJ found that the documents were linked to more than 330 politicians and officials, including 35 current and former national leaders, in more than 91 countries and territories.
“The files contain information on the transactions of nearly three times as many current and former leaders of countries as any previous leak of documents from offshore havens,” the ICIJ wrote on its website.
Are offshore companies illegal?
Setting up offshore companies to do business is not in itself illegal, the ICIJ stressed, as some people might have legitimate reasons for keeping their finances a secret.
But such entities have often proved attractive because they can facilitate tax evasion and money laundering.
Such revelations are no less embarrassing for leaders who may have campaigned publicly against tax evasion and corruption, or advocated austerity measures at home.
Who was appointed?
Important people named include Jordan’s King Abdullah II who is said to have used offshore accounts to spend over $ 100 million on luxury homes in the UK and US.
Days before the October 8-9 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, the documents reportedly linked the country’s Prime Minister Babis to a $ 22 million secret estate in a hilltop village near Cannes, France.
The newspapers also cited Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his mother as beneficiaries of a secret foundation in Panama.
The leaked document also showed that three of Kenyatta’s siblings own five offshore companies with assets worth over $ 30 million.
In addition to politicians, public figures on display included Colombian singer Shakira, German model Claudia Schiffer and former Indian cricket captain Sachin Tendulkar.
Offshore system
In addition to revealing the financial transactions of hundreds of world leaders and celebrities, the investigation shed light on the offshore system itself, with the United States becoming a major player in the offshore world.
South Dakota, according to records, became the U.S. state with the most trusts – a financial mechanism often used to avoid or significantly reduce taxation.
The Pandora Papers are the latest in a string of massive financial document leaks by the ICIJ, from the LuxLeaks in 2014 to the Panama Papers in 2016, which sparked the resignation of the Icelandic Prime Minister and paved the way for the leader’s ouster. Pakistani. .
They were followed by the Paradise Papers files in 2017 and FinCen in 2020.
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