Latest update : 2016-04-04
A massive leak of documents to German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung provide details on how more than 120 politicians and officials around the word moved and stashed money offshore. FRANCE 24 takes a look at some of the big names on the list.
Most of the alleged dealings reported as part of the so-called Panama Papers are legal, but they are likely to have serious political impacts on many of those named.
The owners of the shadow companies created by Panama-based law firm
Mossack Fonseca had previously been kept secret due to the opaque nature
of offshore jurisdictions.
Ironically some of the world leaders featured in the leaked documents
from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca have embraced
anti-corruption platforms.
The political figures below represent only a fraction of those named
in reports emerging from the cache of 11.5 million records, which have
been shared with more than 100 news organisations worldwide.
The information below is based on the reporting done by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Europe
Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson and
his wife allegedly used a secret offshore firm called Wintris Inc. to
hide money in the British Virgin Islands. Reports claim he owned
millions of dollars of Icelandic bank bonds during the financial crisis,
when the country's entire financial system collapsed.
Gunnlaugsson is a former journalist and radio personality who helped
lead a campaign against bank bailouts after his country’s financial
crisis. He became chairman of the Progressive Party in 2008 and
Iceland’s youngest prime minister in 2013.
Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko is the sole
shareholder of Prime Asset Partners Limited, a company set up in the
British Virgin Islands. After assuming office in 2014, he pledged to
sell most of his assets, all of which were transferred to Prime Assets
Capital.
Dubbed Ukraine’s billionaire “chocolate king”, Poroshenko won the
2014 election by a landslide. At the time he vowed to oppose corrupt
oligarchs and “prevent the inappropriate influence of private interests
on the state”.
Former French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac was the
owner of a Seychelles company, Cerman Group Limited, incorporated in
2009 as a client of Mossack Fonseca. In 2013 Mossack Fonseca cut its
ties with Cerman Group Limited, when it was revealed that Cahuzac was
being investigated for allegations of tax fraud.
The Baroness and life peer Pamela Sharples in 1995
became the sole shareholder of Nunswell Investments Limited, a company
based in the Bahamas that she used to make investments.
The leaked documents showed that offshore deals worth $2 billion led to close friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, including billionaire brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. They were owners of at least seven companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.
During Putin’s time in office the Rotenbergs have amassed a fortune
in part through lucrative contracts with state and state-owned
companies.
Middle East
King Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud of
Saudi Arabia used money from two companies established by Mossack
Fonseca in the British Virgin Islands -- Verse Development Corporation
and Inrow Corporation -- for mortgages on luxury homes in London and to
hold a yacht described by CBS News as “the size of a football field”.
The next in line to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Naif bin Abdulaziz
Al Saud, has also been named in the Panama Papers. He used Swiss bank
UBS to buy Panamanian companies from Mossack Fonseca to open bank
accounts and gain power of attorney.
President of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
was the beneficial owner of at least 30 companies established in the
British Virgin Islands by Mossack Fonseca, through which he held
commercial and residential properties around the world.
Sheikh Khalifa built himself a seven-story mountain-top palace in the
Seychelles and the world’s biggest yacht, according to the ICIJ. He has
also donated millions of dollars to medical research centres in the
United States.
Asia
Records showed that family members of at least eight current or
former members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s
main ruling body, have offshore companies. They include President Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, who set up two British Virgin Islands companies in 2009 and has made a fortune in real estate development.
Xi has vowed to fight “armies of corruption”.
Ang Vong Vathana has been the Minister of Justice of
Cambodia since 2004. In 2007 Vathana became one of five shareholders of
the British Virgin Islands company RCD International Limited. The ICIJ
said the purpose of the company was not clear from the documents
obtained, but questioned why Mossack Fonseca did not list him as a
“politically exposed person”, even though he listed his occupation as
“Minister of Justice” on official forms.
The records show that the family of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev used foundations and companies in Panama to hold secret stakes in gold mines and London real estate.
Latin America
Argentina’s recently elected president, Mauricio Macri,
his father Francisco and brother Mariano were directors of Fleg Trading
Ltd, incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009.
As mayor of Buenos Aires in 2007 and 2008, Macri failed to disclose his
connection to Fleg Trading. He narrowly won presidential elections last
year, promising to liberalise the economy and eliminate corruption.
Mossack Fonseca helped Juan Armando Hinojosa, who has been called Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's "favourite contractor”, to create three New Zealand-based trusts to take over accounts worth approximately $100 million.
Hinojosa’s business empire has secured at least $750 million in business with Mexican government agencies.
Africa
Clive Khulubuse Zuma, the nephew of South African president Jacob Zuma,
represented Caprikat Limited, one of two offshore companies that
controversially acquired oil fields in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Alaa Mubarak -- the eldest son of ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak --
owned the British Virgin Islands-based firm Pan World Investments Inc.,
managed by Credit Suisse. Alaa, his brother Gamal, and his father were
sentenced in May 2015 to three years in jail for embezzling millions of
dollars in state funds intended for the renovation of palaces.
Mounir Majidi has been the personal secretary to the King Mohammed VI
of Morocco since 2000. In 2006, Majidi received power of attorney
privileges for SMCD Limited, which was incorporated in the British
Virgin Islands in 2005.
The offshore company has authorised the purchase of a luxury 1930s
schooner “Aquarius W”, renamed “El Boughaz I” and now owned by King
Mohammed VI. Majidi was also administrator of a Luxembourg company
called Immobiliere Orion S.A., which borrowed $42 million in 2003 to buy
and renovate a luxury Paris apartment. It is unclear who owned the
company that lent the money, ICIJ said.
No comments:
Post a Comment