Secret offshore wealth of world leaders revealed in leak of 12 MILLION files dubbed Pandora Papers
The secret offshore wealth of world leaders: Leak of 14 MILLION files reveals multi-million pound holdings of Putin’s inner circle, Azerbaijani ruler’s $400m London property deals, King of Jordan’s $100m empire and $22m French chateau bought by Czech PM
Pandora Papers show Tony and Cherie Blair bought London office via offshore accountFiles were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative JournalistsKing of Jordan secretly bought £70million worth of property in the US and UKMany transactions show no legal wrongdoing but expose how the UK has failed in its promise to bring in a register of offshore property owners
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The secret offshore wealth of more than 300 world leaders, politicians and billionaires has been exposed in one of the biggest ever leaks of financial data.
Dubbed the Pandora Papers, the documents show how 35 current and former world leaders – including Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin – used accounts in tax havens to accrue huge amounts of wealth and carry out transactions.
The files consist of 12 million documents from 14 financial services companies in countries including the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Belize, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Switzerland.
They were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) before being studied by more than 650 reporters from BBC Panorama, the Guardian and other news outlets.
They reveal that former British prime minister Mr Blair and his wife Cherie saved some £321,000 in stamp duty when they bought an office in London by purchasing the offshore company that owned it – while Russian President Mr Putin was linked to secret assets in Monaco.
Meanwhile the King of Jordan was able to secretly add £70million worth of property to his portfolios in the UK and US.
Dubbed the Pandora Papers, the documents show how 35 current and former world leaders – including Tony Blair (pictured) and Vladimir Putin – used accounts in tax havens to accrue huge amounts of wealth and carry out transactions.
While many of the transactions – made by tens of thousands of different offshore firms -feature no legal wrongdoing, they expose how the UK Government has failed in its promise to bring in a register of offshore property owners.
There are concerns that some of the purchases could be the work of money laundering – while some of those named now face allegations of corruption and global tax avoidance.
The release of the documents could not have come at a worse time for Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis – who is facing an election later this week – as they show how he failed to declare an offshore investment company used to purchase two villas for £12million in the south of France.
Meanwhile Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his family and close associates
The papers follow four other huge data leaks in the past seven years – including the FinCen Files, the Paradise Papers, Panama Papers and LuxLeaks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) was linked to secret assets in Monaco by the Pandora Papers
They also show how some 95,000 offshore firms were legally set up to secretly by property in Britain.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his family and close associates snapped up more than £400million worth of property in the UK, the papers revealed.
They also appeared to have made a tidy £31million profit after selling a London property to the Queen’s Crown Estate, which is managed by the Treasury.
Fergus Shiel, from the ICIJ, said: ‘There’s never been anything on this scale and it shows the reality of what offshore companies can offer to help people hide dodgy cash or avoid tax.’
He added: ‘They are using those offshore accounts, those offshore trusts, to buy hundreds of millions of dollars of property in other countries, and to enrich their own families, at the expense of their citizens.’
The ICIJ believes the investigation is ‘opening a box on a lot of things’ – hence the name Pandora Papers.
