Putin’s aides, British Blairs, Imran Khan’s colleagues found Stashing Funds abroad

One of the greatest historical investigative journalism projects has presented one shadow financial system which served the interests of the rich and powerful of the world, including political leaders, tycoon businessmen, athletes and other celebrities.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, Pakistani Ranmran Khan, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are among the top Pandora Papers ».

A leak of 12 million documents containing 2.94 terabytes of data has revealed the secret offshore affairs of 35 world leaders, including many current and former presidents, prime ministers and heads of state.

A total of 330 politicians from 90 countries found their names in the largest consortium of international investigative journalists (ICIJ) greater cooperation with more than 600 journalists from 117 countries. The leaked files date from the 1970s with most files spanning from 1996 to 2020.

Now that the skeletons in the closet of these prestigious elites have been unveiled, angry reactions from citizens around the world are forcing authorities in countries to investigate those who demanded money from taxpayers to buy real estate. shares, use of offshore companies, purchase of mansions, beach properties, yachts, expensive works of art, etc.

“There has never been anything on this scale and it shows the reality of what offshore companies can offer to help people hide messy cash or evade taxes. They use these offshore accounts, these camps, to buy hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth in other countries and enrich their families at the expense of their citizens, says ICGJ’s Fergus Shiel.

The property of the Blairs

In 2017, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie owned a $ 8.8 million Victorian building in Marylebone, central London, which now houses Blair’s international legal advice.

The Blairs are in the newspaper because instead of buying the property in London, they bought the British Virgin Islands company that owned the property, thus avoiding property taxes (stamp duty) worth more than $ 400,000 according to the investigation.

Tony and Cherry Blair “avoided paying 312,000 stamp duty when they bought a $ 6.45 million office in London by buying coastal windows” https://t.co/PEZqpU1j2F pic.twitter.com/KT2aJwpSLJ

– Showbiz (@showbiznotices) October 3, 2021

While it is perfectly legal to acquire real estate this way in the UK, this agreement has created a huge gap that has allowed wealthy people to avoid for a long time the taxes that the general public has to pay. the guardianThe

Putin’s aides under the lens

Two members of Putin’s inner circle are listed in the Pandora Papers. Svetlana Krivonogich, who once worked as a cleaner at the Kremlin Palace and now says she is the mother of the Putin child, owns a $ 4 million property in Monaco bought through an offshore company in late 2003, Al Jazeera reported.

The research shows that the purchase of the property took place shortly after the birth of her daughter Krivonogich.

According Al JazeeraThe Kremlin has denied all allegations made by Putin’s associates against the Kremlin spokesman. with interest.

President of Azerbaijan Aliyev

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev and his family have been secretly involved in British real estate deals worth more than $ 542 million. A media investigation shows how the Aliyevs bought 17 properties, including a $ 44.8 million office block in London for the president’s 11-year-old son, Heyder Aliyev. It also reveals how they sold a property at Crown Estate for $ 89.9 million, possibly tarnishing the image of the British treasury.

Although Aliyev declined to comment, BBC Stresses the failure of the UK Government to introduce a register of offshore property owners despite reported concerns about these offshore money laundering activities.

Fellow of the Cabinet of Imran Khan

Although Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has not been named in the document, cabinet members, military generals and his party’s top financial backers have been found guilty of channeling and inhaling millions of dollars into various jurisdictions under the auspices of various companies and trusts.

Finance Minister Shaukat Fayaz Ahmed Tarin, Water Minister Moonis Elahi were the prominent names among the 700 other Pakistani citizens.

Imran Khan, in one tweet, has pledged to recover the unjust profits and said his government will look into all the citizens mentioned in the documents and take action if necessary.

The irony of this blatant corruption of Khan’s cabinet members leads us back to the 2016 Panama Papers that exposed then-Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to offshore deals that effectively paved the way for Khan to step up and promise reform.

Other prominent leaders

Pandora as the name implies has literally “opened a box for many things” and names of beneficiaries around the world including Jordan King Abdullah II, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrei Babis, President of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Ecuador Guillermo Lasso, Prime Minister of Lebanon Najib Mikati, President of Chile Sebastian Pinera, President of Montenegro Milo Djukanovic, Minister of Economy of Brazil Paulo Guedes and former leaders of Hong Kong CY Leung and Tung Chee-Hwa.

The Pandora documents published on 3 October are a continuation of a series of similar projects by the ICIJ, namely FinCen files, The Paradise Papers, The Panama Papers and LuxLeakThe

Pandora’s papers revealed how world leaders, both current and former, raised not millions but trillions of dollars in the shadows of tax havens and shell companies. As Gerard Riley“It simply reveals that the people who could end the offshore secrecy, end what is happening, are themselves benefiting from it,” he said. Therefore, there is no incentive to end this.