Upload
others
View
1
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
More than a dozen heads ofstate and government, in-cluding the King of Jordanand the Czech Prime Minis-ter, have hidden millions inoff�shore tax havens, accord-ing to an investigation pu-blished on Sunday by the ICIJmedia consortium.
The so-called “PandoraPapers” investigation — in-volving some 600 journalistsfrom media including TheWashington Post, the BBCand The Guardian — is basedon the leak of some 11.9 mil-lion documents from 14 fi�-nancial services companiesaround the world.
Some 35 current andformer leaders are featuredin the documents analysedby the International Consor-tium of Investigative Journal-ists (ICIJ) — facing allegationsranging from corruption tomoney laundering and glo-bal tax avoidance.
Over 700 Pakistanis, in-cluding some Ministers andkey members of Prime Minis-
ter Imran Khan’s inner cir-cle, were among the indivi-duals whose names werelinked with the “PandoraPapers”.
According to the docu-ments, Finance MinisterShaukat Tarin, Minister forWater Resources Moonis Ela-hi, Senator Faisal Vawda, thefamily of Minister for Indus-tries and Production KhusroBakhtiar, among others, hadlinks with off�shore compa-nies, Geo News reported.
Some retired army offi�-
cials, businessmen — includ-ing Axact’s CEO ShoaibSheikh — and media compa-ny owners, have also beennamed in the leaks.
According to the report,leaked documents revealedthat “key members” ofPrime Minister Khan’s innercircle, including Cabinet Mi-nisters, their families andmajor fi�nancial backers“have secretly owned an ar-ray of companies and trustsholding millions of dollars ofhidden wealth”.
The documents notablyexpose how King Abdullah IIcreated a network of off�-shore companies and tax ha-vens to amass a $100 millionproperty empire from Mali-bu, California to Washingtonand London.
The BBC cited lawyers forKing Abdullah saying all theproperties were bought withpersonal wealth, and that itwas common practice forhigh profi�le individuals topurchase properties via off�-shore companies for privacyand security reasons.
The documents also showCzech Prime Minister AndrejBabis — facing an election la-ter this week — failed to de-clare an off�shore investmentcompany used to purchase achateau worth $22 million inthe south of France.
In total, the ICIJ foundlinks between almost 1,000companies in off�shore ha-vens and 336 high-level polit-icians and public offi�cials, in-cluding country leaders,Cabinet Ministers, Ambassa-dors and others.
More than two-thirds of
the companies were set up inthe British Virgin Islands.
In most countries, the ICIJstresses, it is not illegal tohave assets off�shore or to useshell companies to do busi-ness across national borders.
But such revelations areno less of an embarrassmentfor leaders who may havecampaigned publicly againstcorruption, or advocatedausterity measures at home.
The “Pandora Papers” arethe latest in a series of massICIJ leaks of fi�nancial docu-ments that started with Lux-Leaks in 2014, and was fol-lowed by the PanamaPapers, the Paradise Papersand FinCen.
The documents behindthe latest investigation aredrawn from fi�nancial servic-es companies in countries,including the British VirginIslands, Panama, Belize, Cy-prus, the United Arab Emi-rates, Singapore andSwitzerland.
The Panama Papers werebased on the data of a Pana-ma-based law fi�rm calledMossack Fonseca.
‘Pandora Papers’ expose top world leadersDocuments uncover off�shore assets of heads of state, govt.; key members of Imran’s inner circle namedAgence France-PressePress Trust of IndiaWashington
“Pandora Papers” are based on the leak of 11.9 mn documentsfrom 14 fi�nancial services companies. * GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO