A first of its kind leak of 11.5 million tax documents has exposed the secret offshore dealings of Vladimir Putin, a few other world leaders and celebrities including this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi in the Caribbean—a tax haven popular with tax dodgers, dictators and drug dealers.
An investigation into the documents by more than 100 media groups revealed the hidden offshore dealings in the assets of around 140 political figures.
The vast stash of records handed over by an anonymous source to the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung was shared among the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The documents came from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, whose services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands and wealth management. It administers these offshore firms for a yearly fee.
A network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2 billion has trailed to the feet of the Russian president Vladimir Putin. Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern through which his friends earned millions from deals that could not have been secured without his patronage. The documents also suggest that his friends’ fortunes appear to be his to spend.
Other head of the states include prime minister of Iceland Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, king of Saudi Arabia Salman, president of the UAE and Emir of Abu Dhabi Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s family and Argentine president Mauricio Macri.
Hussain Nawaz Sharif, Hasan Nawaz Sharif and Mariam Safdar, the sons and daughter of Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif, have set up at least four offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and they also own at least six high-end properties that overlook London’s Hyde Park.
Kenya’s deputy chief of Indian origin Kalpana Rawal is also listed as the director or shareholder of four companies along with her husband Hasmukhrai Rawal named as the director or shareholder of seven other companies.
Chinese president Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui and Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s son Mohd Nazifuddin too are listed.
According to a report in The Guardian, records show Lionel Messi, who was recently charged for tax evasion, and his father as the ultimate beneficial owners of a company ‘Mega Star Enterprises’, registered by Mossack Fonseca in February, 2012.
