Thirty-five current and former leaders are featured in roughly 11.9mn documents – amounting to about 2.94TB of data – leaked from financial services companies that include reports of luxury mansions on the French Riviera, Monte Carlo and California.
The so-called “Pandora Papers” were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and released in stories by media partners, including the Washington Post, the BBC and the Guardian.
Holding assets offshore or using shell companies is not illegal in most countries, but the revelations are embarrassing for leaders who have pushed austerity measures or campaigned against corruption.
While Russian leader Vladimir Putin is not named, he is linked via associates to secret assets in Monaco: the Washington Post said the documents showed Putin’s mistress had used offshore funds to buy a flat there.
“This is just a set of largely unsubstantiated claims,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “We didn’t see anything on hidden wealth within Putin’s inner circle.”
Jordan rejected as “distorted” reports that King Abdullah II created a network of offshore companies and tax havens to amass a $100mn property empire stretching from California to London.
Abdullah did not directly address the issue but denounced what he called a “campaign against Jordan”.
“Attempts to embarrass Jordan have been going on for some time, and there are still those who want to sabotage it and sow suspicions,” a royal court statement quoted him as saying to a group of tribal elders.
In his first comments on the matter, Abdullah told tribal leaders: “The cost of these properties and all related expenditures have been personally funded by His Majesty. None of these expenses have been funded by the state budget or treasury.”
“There is nothing I have to hide from anyone but we are stronger than this and this is not the first time people target Jordan,” the monarch told the gathering.
Ivory Coast Prime Minister Patrick Achi also denied wrongdoing after allegations that he became the owner of Bahamas-based company Allstar Consultancy Services Ltd through a trust that obscured his ownership.
Achi’s office denounced the “malicious use seemingly being made of this information” that dates back to the late 1990s when he was an adviser to Ivory Coast’s energy minister.
Achi “will not allow his name to be linked with illicit activities and thereby sullied”, the statement added.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said the papers would “enhance financial transparency”, but sidestepped allegations that his family owned 11 offshore companies worth millions of dollars.
“The movement of illicit funds, proceeds of crime and corruption thrive in an environment of secrecy and darkness,” said Kenyatta, the son of independent Kenya’s first president.
The ICIJ found links between almost 1,000 companies in offshore havens and 336 high-level politicians and public officials.
Among them were more than a dozen serving heads of state and government, country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others.
More than two-thirds of the companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands.
Family and associates of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are alleged to have been secretly involved in property deals in Britain worth hundreds of millions.
The documents also show how Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis – who faces an election later this week – failed to declare an offshore investment company used to purchase a chateau worth $22mn in the south of France.
“I have never done anything illegal or wrong,” Babis tweeted, calling the revelations a smear attempt aimed at influencing the election.
Speaking in a television debate, Babis, who was a billionaire before he entered politics, remarked: “The money left a Czech bank, was taxed, it was my money, and returned to a Czech bank.”
India said it would investigate cases linked to the data dump, while Pakistani Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said officials named in the documents would be investigated – including himself.
The Indian Express, part of the consortium, said the documents also showed that businessman Anil Ambani and his representatives owned at least 18 offshore companies in Jersey, the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus.
Set up between 2007 and 2010, seven of these companies had borrowed and invested at least $1.3bn, the report said.
In 2020, following a dispute with three Chinese state-controlled banks, Ambani – the chairman of Reliance Group, India’s biggest conglomerate – had told a London court his net worth was zero.
Lebanon’s former prime minister Hassan Diab said yesterday he had given up shares in a company he was linked to in the leak, and denied wrongdoing.
A statement by his office said he had taken part in founding the company in 2015 and owned 17 shares, but that the firm had no activity since then and he had resigned and sold his stake.
Nearly 2mn of the 11.9mn leaked documents came from a Panamanian law firm called Alcogal, which has rejected accusations of shady dealings.
ICIJ director Gerard Ryle said in a video accompanying the investigation that those best placed to halt such practices were the ones benefiting the most.
Transparency International’s Maira Martini called for an end to the offshore industry, saying that the investigation once more offered “clear evidence” of how it “promotes corruption and financial crime”.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc needed to do “more work” to combat tax evasion.
Among the other revelations from the ICIJ investigation:
• Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair is shown to have legally avoided paying stamp duty on a London property by buying the offshore company that owned it.
• Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso and Gabon’s Ali Bongo were linked with companies in the British Virgin Islands in a report by Le Monde, one of the media partners in the investigation.
• Colombian singer Shakira, the German supermodel Claudia Schiffer, and the Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar are also named, with representatives for all three telling the ICIJ the investments were legitimate.
The “Pandora Papers” are the latest in a series of mass leaks handled by the ICIJ, from LuxLeaks in 2014, to the 2016 Panama Papers.
They were followed by the Paradise Papers in 2017 and FinCen files in 2020.
Prime Minister Khan promises to investigate citizens mentioned in ‘Pandora Papers’
Prime Minister Imran Khan has promised to “investigate” Pakistani citizens connected to a massive probe into the hidden wealth of politicians worldwide, after members of his inner circle were implicated in the report.
The so-called “Pandora Papers” investigation – involving some 600 journalists from media including the Washington Post, the BBC and the Guardian – is based on the leak of some 11.9mn documents from 14 financial services companies around the world.
Some 35 current and former world leaders are featured in the documents analysed by the International Consortium of Investigative Jour1nalists (ICIJ) – facing allegations ranging from corruption to money laundering and global tax avoidance.
In Pakistan, members of Khan’s inner circle – including cabinet ministers and their families – are said to secretly own companies and trusts holding millions of dollars.
“We welcome the Pandora Papers exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites, accumulated through tax evasion & corruption & laundered out to financial ‘havens,’” Khan said in a long Twitter thread.
“My govt will investigate all our citizens mentioned in the Pandora Papers & if any wrongdoing is established we will take appropriate action,” he added. “I call on the international community to treat this grave injustice as similar to the climate change crisis.”
Khan, who had run for office on an anti-graft platform, said that global poverty levels were fuelled by corruption in tax havens, which he said divert funds away from the general public.
He also slammed wealthy countries for not being “interested in preventing this large-scale plunder nor in repatriating this looted money”.
The “Pandora Papers” are the latest in a series of mass ICIJ leaks of financial documents, from LuxLeaks in 2014, to the 2016 Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers in 2017, and FinCen files in 2020.
One of Khan’s predecessors, Nawaz Sharif, was ousted by the country’s Supreme Court in 2017 over allegations that were made in the Panama Papers. – AFP
Khan: We welcome the Pandora Papers exposing the ill-gotten wealth of elites.
