Leaked ‘Pandora’ records show how the powerful shield assets

A new report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists sheds light on how world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires and others have used offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars over the past quarter-century.

The report, referred to as the Pandora Papers, brought promises of tax reform and demands for resignations and investigations, as well as explanations and denials from those targeted.

The investigation was published late Sunday and involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.

Hundreds of politicians, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets, according to a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms located around the world. Much of the activity did not appear to be illegal.

The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Republic Prime Minister 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.

The billionaires called out in the report include Turkish construction mogul Erman Ilicak and Robert T. Brockman, the former CEO of software maker Reynolds & Reynolds.

Many of the accounts were designed to evade taxes and conceal assets for other reasons, according to the report. Some of those targeted strongly denied the claims on Monday.

“The new data leak must be a wake-up call,” said Sven Giegold, a Green party lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Global tax evasion fuels global inequality. We need to expand and sharpen the countermeasures now.”

Oxfam International, a British consortium of charities, applauded the Pandora Papers for exposing brazen examples of greed that deprived countries of tax revenue that could be used to finance programs and projects for the greater good.

“This is where our missing hospitals are,” Oxfam said in a statement. “This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need.”

The European Commission, the 27-nation European Union’s executive arm, said in response to the revelations that it is preparing new legislative proposals to enhance tax transparency and reinforce the fight against tax evasion.

The Pandora Papers are a follow-up to a similar project released in 2016 called the “Panama Papers” compiled by the same journalistic group.

The latest bombshell is even more expansive, relying on data leaked from 14 different service providers doing business in 38 different jurisdictions. The records date back to the 1970s, but most are from 1996 to 2020.

The 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.

The investigation found advisers helped Abdullah, the king of Jordan, set up at least three dozen shell companies from 1995 to 2017, helping the monarch buy 14 homes worth more than $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.

Abdullah denied any impropriety in a comment Monday by the Royal Palace, citing security needs for keeping the transactions quiet and saying no public funds were used.

UK attorneys for Abdullah said he isn’t required to pay taxes under his country’s law and hasn’t misused public funds. The attorneys also said most of the companies and properties are not connected to the king or no longer exist, though they declined to provide details.

Blair, UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007, became the owner of an $8.8 million Victorian building in 2017 by buying a British Virgin Islands company that held the property, and the building now hosts the law firm of his wife, Cherie Blair, according to the the investigation. The two bought the company from the family of Bahrain’s industry and tourism minister, Zayed bin Rashid al-Zayani. Buying the company shares instead of the London building saved the Blairs more than $400,000 in property taxes, the investigation found.

The Blairs and the al-Zayanis both said they didn’t initially know the other party was involved in the deal, the probe found. Cherie Blair said her husband wasn’t involved in the purchase, which she said was meant to bring “the company and the building back into the UK tax and regulatory regime.” She also said she did not want to own a British Virgin Islands company and that the “seller for their own purposes only wanted to sell the company,” which is now closed.

A lawyer for the al-Zayanis said they complied with UK laws.

The report also analyzed a transaction involving the British monarchy.

Britain’s Crown Estate, the property business owned by Queen Elizabeth II, said it would review the 67 million-pound ($91 million) purchase of a London building from a company reported to be a front for the family of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The Guardian said the deal raised questions about whether the transaction should be investigated on money-laundering concerns. Aliyev, who has ruled Azerbaijan since 2003, has been accused of corruption and rights abuses.

The Crown Estate said it had conducted checks before the purchase but amid the questions raised is now “looking into the matter” again.

Khan, the Pakistani prime minister, is not accused of any wrongdoing. But members of his inner circle, including Finance Minister Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin, are accused of hiding millions of dollars in wealth in secret companies or trusts, according to the journalists’ findings.

In a tweet, Khan vowed to recover the “ill-gotten gains” and said his government will look into all citizens mentioned in the documents and take action, if needed.

The consortium of journalists revealed Putin’s image-maker and chief executive of Russia’s leading TV station, Konstantin Ernst, got a discount to buy and develop Soviet-era cinemas and surrounding property in Moscow after he directed the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Ernst told the organization the deal wasn’t secret and denied suggestions he was given special treatment.

In 2009, Babis, the Czech prime minister, put $22 million into shell companies to buy a chateau property in a hilltop village in Mougins, France, near Cannes, the investigation found. The shell companies and the chateau were not disclosed in Babis’ required asset declarations, according to documents obtained by the journalism group’s Czech partner, Investigace.cz.

A real estate group owned indirectly by Babis bought the Monaco company that owned the chateau in 2018, the probe found.

Babis has denied any wrongdoing. He said the report was meant to harm him ahead of the Czech Republic parliamentary election being held on Friday and Saturday.

The Czech police’s organized crime unit said it would launch an investigation.

Montenegro’s President Milo Djukanovic faced calls to resign after he was listed as one of the world leaders who used secret accounts to hide their property. His office denied a report by the local Montenegrin Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector, which alleged he and his son established a trust to conceal their wealth behind a complicated network of companies.

By Michael Liedtke and Jonathan Mattise/AP

Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California, and Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee. Associated Press writers Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Karel Janicek in the Czech Republic, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, John Rice in Mexico City, Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Felicia Fonseca in Phoenix contributed to this report.