Massive leak of financial documents allegedly ties world leaders to secret stores of wealth, including King Abdullah of Jordan, Czech PM Andrej Babis, and associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.More than a dozen heads of state and government, including the King of Jordan and the Czech prime minister, have hidden millions in offshore tax havens, according to an investigation published by the ICIJ media consortium.
The so-called “Pandora Papers” investigation – involving some 600 journalists from media including The Washington Post, the BBC and The Guardian – is based on the leak of some 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies around the world.
Some 35 current and former leaders are featured in the documents analysed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) – facing allegations ranging from corruption to money laundering and global tax avoidance. Babis denies wrongdoing
The documents notably expose how King Abdullah II created a network of offshore companies and tax havens to amass a $100 million property empire from Malibu, California to Washington and London.
The BBC cited lawyers for King Abdullah saying all the properties were bought with personal wealth, and that it was common practice for high profile individuals to purchase properties via offshore companies for privacy and security reasons.
The documents also show Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis – facing an election later this week – failed to declare an offshore investment company used to purchase a chateau worth $22 million in the south of France.
Babis, however, denied any wrongdoing.
“The money left a Czech bank, was taxed, it was my money, and returned to a Czech bank,” Babis, who is campaigning for an October 8-9 election, said in a TV debate.
Asked if he had broken any law in the Czech Republic, France, or the United States in relation to the 2009 property purchase, he said: “Of course not…It was taxed money.”
Babis said a previously done audit proved he had sufficient and taxed income for the transaction.
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