Pandora Papers Are Here – Uncomfortable Reading For Some Law Firms – We Hope So .. Who Will Be The Next Mossack Fonseca?

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is proud to bring you our latest investigation:

The Pandora Papers.

Based upon the most expansive leak of tax haven files in history, the investigation reveals the secret deals and hidden assets of more than 330 politicians and high-level public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 country leaders. The Pandora Papers lays bare the global entanglement of political power and secretive offshore finance.

ICIJ obtained more than 11.9 million financial records, containing 2.94 terabytes of confidential information from 14 offshore service providers, enterprises that set up and manage shell companies and trusts in tax havens around the globe. ICIJ shared the files with 150 media partners, launching the broadest collaboration in journalism history. For nearly two years, ICIJ organized and led an investigation that grew to encompass more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories.

Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed

The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations. Ambassadors, mayors and ministers, presidential advisers, generals and a central bank governor appear in the files.

The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it – stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.

Explore the major findings and features:

We’ll have more stories coming out through the week, so stay tuned for more!

Hamish Boland-Rudder
ICIJ’s Online Editor

Czech leader secretly bought lavish French Riviera estate using offshore companies

As Kenyan president mounted comeback, his family’s fortune expanded offshore

Leak reveals how Swiss wealth consultants shield global cast of suspects

Putin image-maker’s role in billion-dollar cinema deal hidden offshore

The massive Pandora Papers trove an offshore data tsunami

When Latin America’s elite wanted to hide their wealth, they turned to this Panama firm

Something big just happened in the fight against corruption. It’s called the #PandoraPapers.

After two years of sifting through over 11 million documents, OCCRP and 150 other media outlets have uncovered dozens of political elites around the world — including heads of state —  who hid massive amounts of wealth using offshore companies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Ailyev, are just some of the many politically exposed persons whose shadowy business dealings are revealed in this groundbreaking series, which was coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

See what we found in the leaks.

Read The Pandora Papers

The revelations in the Pandora Papers are similar to what came out of the Panama Papers, another ICIJ investigation that OCCRP worked on. Both expose how corporate service providers help the wealthy and powerful hide their money in some of the world’s most secretive jurisdictions.

But while the Panama Papers was based on leaked documents from one law firm, Mossack Fonseca, the Pandora Papers were leaked from 14 service providers around the world.

This project puts an end to any narrative that abuses of the offshore industry are just the work of a few bad apples. Instead, the files expose a vast and interconnected system that is feeding crises and discontent across the world.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks as we continue to publish new stories and other developments on this important investigation.

Thanks for being an OCCRP reader,