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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich

    The secret deals and hidden assets of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people have been revealed in the biggest trove of leaked offshore data in history.


    Branded the Pandora papers, the cache includes 11.9m files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.


    They expose the secret offshore affairs of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime ministers and heads of state. They also shine a light on the secret finances of more than 300 other public officials such as government ministers, judges, mayors and military generals in more than 90 countries.


    The files include disclosures about major donors to the Conservative party, raising difficult questions for Boris Johnson as his party meets for its annual conference.


    More than 100 billionaires feature in the leaked data, as well as celebrities, rock stars and business leaders. Many use shell companies to hold luxury items such as property and yachts, as well as incognito bank accounts. There is even art ranging from looted Cambodian antiquities to paintings by Picasso and murals by Banksy.

    MORE Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful | World news | The Guardian

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Key findings from the Pandora Papers investigation


    The Pandora Papers is an investigation based on more than 11.9 million documents revealing the flows of money, property and other assets concealed in the offshore financial system. The Washington Post and other news organizations exposed the involvement of political leaders, examined the growth of the industry within the United States and demonstrated how secrecy shields assets from governments, creditors and those abused or exploited by the wealthy and powerful. The trove of confidential information, the largest of its kind, was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which organized the investigation.


    Here are the key takeaways:

    1. Country leaders on five continents use the offshore system: The Pandora Papers expose the offshore holdings of 35 current and former country leaders, according to analysis by the ICIJ. The new records show more than $106 million spent by King Abdullah II of Jordan on luxury homes in Malibu, Calif., Washington, D.C., and other locations; millions of dollars in property and cash secretly owned by the leaders of Kenya and the Czech Republic; and the acquisition of a luxury waterfront apartment in Monaco by a Russian woman after she reportedly had a child with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Representatives of Abdullah have denied any impropriety or use of public funds. The Czech and Kenyan leaders did not respond to request for comment, nor did the Kremlin and the Russian woman.

    The investigation exposes more than twice as many offshore account holders and political figures as the Panama Papers, an earlier ICIJ-led global study of offshore finance, and relies on a larger trove of confidential information.


    2. Some American states have become central to the global offshore system: The U.S. government has condemned prominent offshore financial centers, where promises of discretion have long drawn oligarchs, business tycoons and politicians. But the Pandora Papers expose how foreign political and corporate leaders or their relatives moved money and other assets in recent years from international tax havens to even more secretive American trust companies, including those in South Dakota. The records also show how a firm in Central America became a one-stop shop for American clients, allowing them to conceal their assets while facing criminal investigations or lawsuits.


    Offshore financial firms that responded to the ICIJ's and The Post's requests for comment issued statements asserting their compliance with legal mandates but declining to answer questions about their clients.

    3. A global treasure hunt leads to an indicted art dealer's offshore trusts - and the Met: The records reveal how a notorious art dealer, Douglas Latchford, and his family set up trusts in tax havens shortly after U.S. investigators began linking him to looted Cambodian artifacts. The Post and its ICIJ partners launched a hunt for antiquities that Latchford and his associates are suspected of selling and examined how offshore companies are used to conceal wrongdoing in the global art trade. Although some museums have returned Cambodian antiquities in years past, dozens tied to the indicted dealer remain in prominent collections, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the British Museum in London. These museums and others said that they take many precautions to ensure the items they acquire weren't stolen, and that standards for provenance have changed over the years.


    4. U.S. sanctions imposed on Russian oligarchs hit their targets. While American officials say visibility into the private accounts of Putin insiders is rare, the Pandora documents show the reach of sanctions at a time when they are the overwhelming weapon of choice in Washington's combative relationship with Moscow. Oligarchs - targeted for sanctions because of what the U.S. Treasury has called "malign" activity by Russia - have gone to great lengths to evade their effects, at times reconfiguring their holdings and shifting ownership of assets. Still, the measures took a toll on their targets and triggered losses that spread across the financial networks that include these Kremlin insiders.

    Key findings from the Pandora Papers investigation

  3. #3
    5 4 Knoll
    david44's Avatar
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    Not sure if your in our time zone
    Already 2 threads on this inc my own with same Guardian link

    Yesterday, 10:49 AM

    Pandora Papers

    If you liked the Panama Papers, if you liked Panama Hat this is the new sleaze

    Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful | World news | The Guardian

    Even teh Mad Hatter was only 6 hours late

    Putin's inner circle of wealth - open Pandora's Box
    Quote Originally Posted by Latindancer View Post
    I just want the chance to use a bigger porridge bowl.

  4. #4
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Opposition politicians have launched impeachment proceedings against Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, over possible irregularities in the sale of a mining company, after new details about the deal were revealed in the Pandora papers.

    Lawmakers cited an “ethical duty” to hold the president accountable for the alleged irregularities in his involvement in the controversial Dominga project.

    Earlier this month Chile’s public prosecutor’s office said that it would open an investigation into possible bribery-related corruption charges and tax violations linked to the sale, which was completed in the British Virgin Islands.

    The move is the latest blow for centre-right Piñera as he approaches the end of a turbulent four-year term. Presidential and legislative elections are due in November, with polls suggesting leftwing candidates are likely to gain ground.


    The
    Pandora papers – the biggest trove of leaked offshore data in history – revealed new details of the controversial mining deal.

    Piñera’s family sold their stake in the Dominga mine project in 2010 to his close friend and business partner, Carlos Alberto Délano. The Pandora papers investigation found evidence to suggest that the third installment of the payment contained a clause requiring the government not to strengthen environmental protections in the proposed area for the mine in the north of Chile.

    Jaime Naranjo, a leftist lower house lawmaker and one of the drivers of the impeachment proceeding, said Piñera had “openly infringed the constitution … seriously compromising the honor of the nation”.

    Chile president Pinera faces impeachment after Pandora papers leak | Chile | The Guardian

  5. #5
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    Pandora Papers: is the world’s biggest leak the world’s biggest cover-up?

    Where are the US billionaires, the Wall Streeters, the Big Four tax firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC? Michael West explores the mystery of the Pandora Papers in this first of a two-part series.

    In the wake of the stunning Pandora Papers data leak this week, the ABC enthused, “Even by the ICIJ’s standards, this is big. If the documents were printed out and stacked up they would be four times taller than Sydney’s Centrepoint Tower”.
    Probably not. If we assume Pandora is like its predecessors Panama Papers and Paradise Papers – where less than 1% of the data was made public – that would represent a stack of documents 12.2 metres high, not 1220 metres, which would get you up to Yogurt World on Level 5 of the Centrepoint food court.
    Another “biggest data leak in history”, another trove mega-leaks where billionaires, celebrities, Italian mobsters, Russian oligarchs and foreign heads of state have been outed for their links to tax havens.
    But where are the US politicians? Where are the Wall Streeters? Where are the Big Four, the masterminds of global tax avoidance PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte?
    Conspicuously absent, that’s where. Again.

    Beating the B Team

    Make no mistake this is fabulous, explosive stuff. The Pandora Papers, like Panama Papers and Paradise papers, are a spectacular data leak but, like the leaks before them, they have blown the lid on the world’s Tax Avoidance B Team.
    And, like the others, the data has not actually been made public; not much of it anyway, maybe 1%. The rest is sitting with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington. It has been leaked to the ICIJ alone which in turn leaks bits of it, presumably a very small part of it, to its “global media partners”.
    In Australia, these are Nine Entertainment’s AFR, Guardian and ABC who are themselves keeping most of it a secret. This from Guardian Australia:
    “Australians who appear in the data include senior figures from the finance and property industries. The Guardian has chosen not to identify them.
    “About 400 Australian names are contained in the papers, a cache of 11.9m files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Samoa.”

    Meanwhile Julian Assange

    Meanwhile Julian Assange continues to rot in London’s Belmarsh Prison, facing extradition to the US, abandoned by successive Australian governments amid reports of a CIA plot to assassinate him. His crime? Wikileaks made public US war crimes; a real leak, documents actually made public.
    In contrast, the Washington-based ICIJ has consistently refused to release its data to the public, preferring instead to conduct a choreographed media circus. Its director, Australian journalist Gerard Ryle, declined to respond to questions for this story, doubly ironic given we used to work together on the newsroom floors at Fairfax and the ICIJ is a self-styled beacon of journalistic integrity dedicated to “expose the truth and hold the powerful accountable, while also adhering to the highest standards of fairness and accuracy”.
    One question we put to Ryle was whether ICIJ had received a subpoena from US authorities for this incredible trove of corporate information, say the Department of Justice. If not, why not?
    The questions are many, not only because of the sheer magnitude of this set of leaks but also because the effect of the Pandora Papers is to, deservedly, trash a suite of non-US tax havens such as the notorious British Virgin Islands and the upshot will be to drive global wealth towards secrecy jurisdictions in the US such as Rupert Murdoch’s preferred haven of Delaware.So, what is going on here?
    The way ICIJ works is they use a panel of 150 “media partners”, mostly large corporate media organisations around the world, to disseminate the information, or at least the bits of it they deem suitable.
    In the case of Panama Papers, an anonymous source dubbed John Doe hacked Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and leaked the data to German journalists who got it to ICIJ for dissemination to its band of media partners.


    14 Mossack Fonsecas

    This time around, there are 14 Mossack Fonsecas; that is, 14 “offshore service providers” have been hacked. This is hacking on an industrial, possibly sovereign, scale. It is possible these “offshore service providers”, from Hong Kong to the Caribbean, divulged the information voluntarily, but unlikely.
    Who benefits? The US and the Big Four. Just as the Panama Papers helped to demolish Panama as a tax haven, compelling clients of Mossack Fonseca to flee to other secrecy jurisdictions to hide their money, the upshot of the Pandora Papers is that, right at this moment, the super rich who secrete their money in the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles or Cyprus will be thinking long and hard about restructuring to hide their riches via Delaware or another onshore tax haven in the US.
    They will also think long and hard about getting the Big Four global tax firms – PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG – to manage their affairs. The A Team.
    This is of course a speculative conclusion but also, as one regulatory finance source confided to Michael West Media this week, just a matter of putting two and two together. The Washington-based ICIJ never seems to be harassed by US authorities, the Big Four are rarely named, US billionaires are rarely named, blue chip tax avoiders are rarely named, the identity of the vast bulk of wealthy Australians in the data are never named.

    Foreign PEPs, mobsters and oligarchs

    This is not to disparage the work of Gerard Ryle and his team. The latest mega-leak of almost 12 million documents from offshore finance firms has identified the usual high profile types: crooner Julio Iglesias, cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, pop music diva Shakira, supermodel Claudia Schiffer and “an Italian mobster known as “Lell the Fat One”.
    Great headlines, and every one a worthy story, although many will have bona fide reasons for being in tax havens. Rich people avoid tax, full stop. We will discuss the mechanics of secrecy jurisdictions, how it all works and who actually benefits in the sequel to this story.

    Besides the crooners, mobsters and Russian oligarchs however, the Pandora Papers have outed an array of ”politically exposed persons” (PEP); former politicians and present heads of state. From King Abdullah of Jordan, Azerbaijan’s ruling Aliyev family, the prime minister of the Czech republic, Andrej Babiš and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to former British prime minister Tony Blair and three current Latin American heads of state, those identified publicly in Pandora Papers have sent shockwaves around the world.

    The Aussie connection

    A slew of tax authorities have vowed to take action, including the Australian Tax Office which, on Wednesday, froze more than $80 million in assets and companies linked to Gold Coast property developer Jim Raptis.
    Westpac director Steve Harker was also identified as a client of one of the offshore service providers Singapore’s Asiaciti. As the identities of most of the Australians remain a secret, Harker is probably feeling unfairly targeted. What of the other 400 Australians?
    No doubt the draconian defamation laws in this country, laws which protect the wealthy, played a part in the decision of local media to keep the names secret. Yet this also goes to the fundamental issue with ICIJ’s arbitrary arrangements and its media partners cherry-picking the data.
    If ICIJ were truly fair dinkum about transparency and public interest, it would make the data from all its leaks public so that boffins from around the world, anybody for that matter, could hop in and dig around.
    Who is calling the shots? One man apparently, Gerard Ryle. In the wake of the Panama Papers, when we asked Ryle on a number of occasions for an ICIJ log-in to analyse the data, we were denied.
    “My path, my call,” said Ryle. We already have our media partners, he said.
    Meanwhile, the 2016 Panama Papers remain under lock and key, unavailable to the public, secreted by ICIJ. The data is getting stale now. It is six years old. It is wasted, an insult to the people who risked their lives to put it in the public domain.

    Pandora Papers: is the world’s biggest leak the world’s biggest cover-up? - Michael West Media



    I smell a rat too.

  6. #6
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Where are the US billionaires, the Wall Streeters, the Big Four tax firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC?
    I thought we'd already established they are hiding all their money in the US in plain sight, and no-one gives a fuck because they're too busy trying to decriminalise driving someone to an abortion in a Uber, or on the other side, trying to "own the libs".

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