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Pandora
Papers Leak
REVELATIONS
The documents exposed ‘offshore secrets of
wealthy elites from more than 200 countries
and territories. These people have used tax and
secrecy havens to buy property and hide assets;
many avoid taxes and worse. They include more
than 330 politicians and 130 Forbes billionaires, as
well as celebrities, fraudsters, drug dealers, royal
family members and leaders of religious groups
around the world.
INVESTIGATION
The International Consortium of Investigative Jour-
nalists invested 14 months and involved more than
600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 coun-
tries structuring, researching and analyzing more
than 11.9 million records in the Pandora Papers leak.
The task involved three main elements: journalists,
technology and time.
WHAT IS THE PANDORA PAPERS?
The world’s largest-ever journalistic collabora-
tion, Pandora Papers investigation is set up on a
leak of confidential records of 14 offshore service
providers that give professional services to wealthy
individuals and corporations seeking to incorpo-
rate shell companies, trusts, foundations and other
entities in at least 38 low- or no-tax jurisdictions.
The entities enable owners to conceal their iden-
tities from the public and sometimes from regu-
lators. Often, the providers help them open bank
accounts in countries with light financial regulation.
The 2.94 terabytes of data, which was leaked to
ICIJ and shared with media partners around the
world, came in various formats: from hand-written
pieces to images, emails, spreadsheets and others.
The Pandora Papers gathered information on more
than 27,000 companies and 29,000 so-called ulti-
mate beneficial owners from 11 of the providers.
The legal entities in the files of six providers – the
companies, foundations and trusts – were all regis-
tered between 1971 and 2018. The records show
providers and clients shifting their business from
one jurisdiction to another after investigations and
resulting rule changes.
(Source: ICIJ)
WHAT DOES 2.94 TERABYTES DATA HOLD?
The leaked records consists of unprecedented
amount of information about the so-called bene-
ficial owners of entities registered across various
offshore tax havens and related jurisdictions such
as British Virgin Islands, Seychelles, Hong Kong,
Belize, Panama, South Dakota and other secrecy
jurisdictions.
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