The report released Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries sparked a political and social firestorm by shedding light on the previously hidden financial dealings of the world elite and how they have used offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars.
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Dubbed the "Pandora Papers," for the Greek mythology artifact the opening of which unleashed countless evils into the world, the leaked records name hundreds of world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers as having been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past 25 years.
The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan's King Abdullah II, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech PM Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso, and associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to name a few.
Many of the accounts were designed to evade taxes and conceal assets for other shady reasons, according to the report.
The ICIJ's latest investigation dug into accounts registered in familiar offshore havens, including the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Hong Kong, and Belize. But some of the secret accounts were also scattered around in trusts set up in the US, including 81 in South Dakota and 37 in Florida.
Some of the initial findings released Sunday painted a sordid picture of the prominent people involved.
The documents show, for example, how King Abdullah of Jordan created a network of offshore companies and tax havens to amass a $100 million property empire from Malibu, California to Washington, and London.
Data shows that advisers helped the monarch set up over 35 shell companies from 1995 to 2017, as well as helped him buy 14 homes worth over $106 million in the US and the UK. One was a $23 million California ocean-view property bought in 2017 through a British Virgin Islands company. The advisers were identified as an English accountant in Switzerland and lawyers in the British Virgin Islands.
There was no immediate comment from Jordan's Royal Palace.
The details are an embarrassing blow to Abdullah, 59, whose government was engulfed in scandal this year when his half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah, accused the "ruling system" of corruption and incompetence. The king claimed he was the victim of a "malicious plot," placed his half brother under house arrest and put two former close aides on trial.
UK attorneys for Abdullah said the king is not required to pay taxes under his country's law and hasn't misused public funds. They stressed that all the properties were bought with King Abdullah's personal wealth, and it was common practice for high-profile individuals to buy properties via offshore companies for privacy and security reasons.
"Any implication that there is something improper about ownership of property through companies in offshore jurisdictions is categorically denied," said DLA Piper, the law firm that represents the monarch. "[Abdullah] has not at any point misused public monies or made any use whatsoever of the proceeds of aid or assistance intended for public use."
Annelle Sheline, a Middle East scholar. was cited by Arab media as saying that "Jordan doesn't have the kind of money that other Middle Eastern monarchies, like Saudi Arabia, have to allow a king to flaunt his wealth. If the Jordanian monarch were to display his wealth more publicly, it wouldn't only antagonize his people, it would p**s off Western donors who have given him money."
The Pandora Papers are a follow-up to a similar ICIJ project released in 2016 called the "Panama Papers."
The latest bombshell is even more expansive, porting through nearly 3 terabytes of data – the equivalent of roughly 750,000 photos on a smartphone – leaked from 14 different service providers doing business in 38 different jurisdictions in the world. The records date back to the 1970s, but most of the files span from 1996 to 2020.
In contrast, the Panama Papers culled through 2.6 terabytes of data leaked by one now-defunct law firm called Mossack Fonseca that was located in the country that inspired that project's nickname.
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