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Pandora Papers: ‘Largest-ever’ journalistic investigation exposes world of offshore assets

Details of offshore assets include those of 35 current and former world leaders

Pandora Papers includes data on 27,000 companies and 29,000 “ultimate beneficial owners” from 11 of the offshore service providers | Representative image Pandora Papers includes data on 27,000 companies and 29,000 “ultimate beneficial owners” from 11 of the offshore service providers | Representative image

Nearly three terabytes of data on the wealthy elite of over 200 countries and territories, compiled from 11.9 million records and 14 different offshore services firms: This is the haul touted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism in its latest project, the PandoraPapers.

Calling this investigation the world’s “largest-ever journalistic collaboration”, the ICIJ says the data exposes the “offshore secrets” of over 330 politicians, 130 Forbes billionaires, celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal family members and leaders of religious groups around the world. Details on these offshore assets include those of “35 current and former country leaders”, the ICIJ says.

Compared to the earlier Panama Papers report, the Pandora Papers includes data on 27,000 companies and 29,000 “ultimate beneficial owners” from 11 of the offshore service providers, and features information from 14 providers in total, with records dating back to the 1970s (but most of which date between 1996 and 2020).

The significance of offshore assets—which are not necessarily illegal to own—largely has to do with its sheer scale and the quantity of tax evasion it enables. At least $11.3 trillion in funds is held “offshore,” according to a 2020 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. For the world’s super-wealthy, the offshore financial system allows them to shelter their wealth using the less-stringent regulations of countries that market themselves as offshore tax havens. Using trusts, holding companies and shell companies, the wealthy are able to obscure their wealth.

“An ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others. More than two-thirds of those companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction long known as a key cog in the offshore system,” the ICIJ said in its report.

“Because of the complexity and secrecy of the offshore system, it’s not possible to know how much of that wealth is tied to tax evasion and other crimes and how much of it involves funds that come from legitimate sources and have been reported to proper authorities,” the ICIJ notes.

Multiple reports from the project were published on Sunday evening by over 150 media partners.

Members of Imran Khan’s family and inner circle including his finance minister hold millions of dollars of hidden wealth, stashed in offshore holding companies, the investigation found—noting that Khan himself did not own any offshore firms. Khan himself had hailed the 2016 Panama Papers leak as a “godsend”, as it helped him oust the corrupt Nawaz Sharif regime.

From Jordan, King Abdullah is found to have secretly spent over $106 million on lavish homes in the US and Britain, the Washington Post reported.

In the UK, former prime minister Tony Blair was reported to have escaped £312,000 of stamp duty on a property deal by buying the offshore firm that owned the property, the BBC reported.

The Panamian government has already expressed concern over the impact the report could have on its business. “The damage could be insurmountable," the Panamanian government said in a letter sent through a law firm to the ICIJ.

On India, the Indian Express reported that there is a “long list” of Indian offenders “who are currently under the scanner of agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate, and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office.”

While names have not been released, the report notes that “Politically Exposed Persons” are involved including former Members of Parliament, those who have held public office in India, those who deal in sensitive trades and even former bureaucrats.

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