{"id":525900,"date":"2021-10-04T07:30:27","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T05:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=525900"},"modified":"2021-10-04T07:30:27","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T05:30:27","slug":"here-are-the-biggest-revelations-from-the-pandora-papers-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/525900\/here-are-the-biggest-revelations-from-the-pandora-papers-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"Here are the biggest revelations from the Pandora Papers leak"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unprecedented\u00a0leak<\/a>\u00a0of financial records known as the Pandora Papers has revealed the offshore financial assets of dozens of current and former world leaders and hundreds of politicians from Asia and the Middle East to Latin America.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0International Consortium of Investigative Journalists<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0obtained 11.9 million confidential documents from 14 separate legal and financial services firms, which the group said offered \u201ca sweeping look at an industry that helps the world\u2019s ultrawealthy, powerful government officials and other elites conceal trillions of dollars from tax authorities, prosecutors and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving money through offshore accounts, in mostly low-tax jurisdictions, is legal in most countries, and many of the people named in the data release aren\u2019t accused of criminal wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

But the journalist group said the 2.94 terabytes of financial and legal data – which makes this leak larger than the 2016 Panama papers release – shows the \u201coffshore money machine operates in every corner of the planet, including the world\u2019s largest democracies,\u201d and involves some of the world\u2019s most well-known banks and legal firms.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the biggest revelations in the release:<\/p>\n

\n

Jordan king\u2019s real estate empire<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s monarch, King Abdullah II, used an English accountant in Switzerland and lawyers in the British Virgin Islands to secretly purchase 14 luxury homes worth $106 million, including a $23 million property in California overlooking a beach, the ICIJ\u00a0reported<\/a><\/strong>, noting the country\u00a0relies<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0on foreign aid to support its people and house millions of refugees.<\/p>\n

UK attorneys for the king told the ICIJ that he was not required to pay taxes under Jordanian law, has never misused public funds and has \u201csecurity and privacy reasons to hold property through offshore companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

French Riviera estate<\/strong><\/p>\n

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who is currently running for re-election, \u201cmoved $22 million through offshore companies to buy a lavish estate on the French Riviera in 2009 while keeping his ownership secret,\u201d ICIJ\u00a0said<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The five-bedroom Chateau Bigaud, which is owned by a subsidiary of one of Babis\u2019s Czech companies, sits on 9.4 acres (3.8 hectares) in a hilltop village where Pablo Picasso spent the last years of his life, the group said.<\/p>\n

The Queen and Azerbaijan<\/strong><\/p>\n

The data release revealed that Azerbaijan\u2019s ruling Aliyev family traded around $540 million worth of U.K. property in recent years,\u00a0reported<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0the Guardian, one of the ICIJ\u2019s media partners.<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s crown estate bought one property worth almost $91 million from the family, and is currently in the middle of an internal review into the purchase, the Guardian said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the potential concerns raised, we are looking into the matter,\u201d a spokesperson for the crown estate told the paper, which added the Aliyevs declined to comment.<\/p>\n

South Dakota, Nevada havens<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most \u201ctroubling revelations\u201d for the US was the role of South Dakota, Nevada and other states that have adopted financial secrecy laws that \u201crival those of offshore jurisdictions\u201d and demonstrate America\u2019s \u201cexpanding complicity in the offshore economy,\u201d said the Washington Post, one of the ICIJ\u2019s media partners.<\/p>\n

A former vice president of the Dominican Republic finalized several trusts in South Dakota to store his personal wealth and shares of one of the country\u2019s largest sugar producers, the paper said.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s political elite<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several members of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan\u2019s inner circle, including current and former cabinet ministers, \u201csecretly owned an array of companies and trusts holding millions of dollars of hidden wealth,\u201d the group\u00a0reported<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That could create a political headache for the former cricket star, who campaigned for the South Asian country\u2019s highest office as the head of a reformist party that promised a strong anti-corruption agenda.<\/p>\n

Before the release of the Pandora papers, a Khan spokesperson told a news conference Khan had no offshore company, but ministers and advisers \u201cwill have to be held accountable\u201d for their individual acts.<\/p>\n

Tony Blair property purchase<\/strong><\/p>\n

The documents show former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife\u00a0saved<\/a>\u00a0around $422,000 by using an offshore company to purchase an almost $9 million office in London\u2019s Marylebone area that was partially owned by the family of a Bahraini minister, the Guardian reported.<\/p>\n

The paper said there was nothing illegal about the deal, but it \u201chighlights a loophole that has enabled wealthy property owners not to pay a tax that is commonplace for ordinary Britons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Here\u2019s how much money government employees earn in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unprecedented\u00a0leak\u00a0of financial records known as the Pandora Papers has revealed the offshore financial assets of dozens of current and former world leaders and hundreds of politicians from Asia and the Middle East to Latin America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":525902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-525900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525908,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525900\/revisions\/525908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}