Pandora Papers highlight secret wealth of world leaders, billionaires
- Sprawling investigation reveals powerful billionaires, current and former world leaders, affiliated with companies that use offshore tax havens
- Report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries
More than a dozen heads of state and government, from Jordan to Azerbaijan, Kenya and the Czech Republic, have used offshore tax havens to hide assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a far-reaching new investigation by the ICIJ media consortium.
The Pandora Papers investigation – involving some 600 journalists from media including The Washington Post, the BBC and The Guardian – is based on the leak of some 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies around the world.
Some 35 current and former leaders are featured in the latest vast trove of documents analysed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – facing allegations ranging from corruption to money laundering and global tax avoidance.
In most countries, the ICIJ stresses, it is not illegal to have assets offshore or to use shell companies to do business across national borders.
But such revelations are no less of an embarrassment for leaders who may have campaigned publicly against tax avoidance and corruption, or advocated austerity measures at home.