Massive data leak exposes offshore financial secrets (Top Pakistani politicians involeved)

[shanzonline]

They sought the utmost secrecy in offshore tax havens. But now some of the world's wealthiest citizens are having their undisclosed financial records laid bare.
An unprecedented leak of documents is revealing the closely guarded investment information of more than 100,000 people around the world, including hundreds of Canadians.

'This is the very first time where people like myself, and maybe even government officials, have had access to this information'Tax law expert Art Cockfield​

In what is believed to be one of the largest ever leaks of financial data, the Washington, D.C.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has received nearly 30 years of data entries, emails and other confidential details from 10 offshore havens around the world.
CBC News has partnered with the ICIJ over the last seven months to gain exclusive Canadian access to the information. Thirty-seven media outlets in 35 other countries are also involved.
"This secret world has finally been revealed," said lawyer and international tax expert Art Cockfield, a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
[h=3] MAP Tax haven data leak reverberates around globe [/h]

"I find it absolutely fascinating to get a look at this data dump. I think this is the very first time where people like myself, and maybe even government officials, have had access to this information."
The files contain information on over 120,000 offshore entities including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts involving people in over 170 countries. The leak amounts to 260 gigabytes of data, or 162 times larger than the U.S. State Department cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010.
"What we found as we started digging in the records is a pretty extensive collection of dodgy characters: Wall Street fraudsters, Ponzi schemers, figures connected to organized crime, to arms dealing, money launderers," said Michael Hudson, a senior editor at the ICIJ, who worked with a team for months to sort through the information.
[h=4]News tips[/h]If you have more information on this story, or other investigative tips to pass on, please email [email protected]

"We just found a lot of folks involved in questionable or outright illegal activities."
There was also plenty of information related to legal offshore dealings. Offshore investments aren't illicit as long as they are not used to evade taxes or launder money.
As reported by CBC News yesterday, the files show that a Canadian senator and her husband, one of the country's most prominent class-action lawyers, were
beneficiaries of a confidential offshore account in the Cook Islands that was used to make investments via Bermuda.


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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/03/offshore-data-leak.html

 

[khanaman]

[h=1]Leaks reveal secrets of the rich who hide cash offshore[/h]Exclusive: Offshore financial industry leak exposes identities of 1,000s of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world

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• David Leigh
  
• The Guardian, Wednesday 3 April 2013 23.59 BST
  
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The British Virgin Islands, the world's leading offshore haven used by an array of government officials and rich families to hide their wealth. Photograph: Duncan Mcnicol/Getty Images


Millions of internal records have leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world, from presidents to plutocrats, the daughter of a notorious dictator and a British millionaire accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife.
The leak of 2m emails and other documents, mainly from the offshore haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), has the potential to cause a seismic shock worldwide to the booming offshore trade, with a former chief economist at McKinsey estimating that wealthy individuals may have as much as $32tn (21tn) stashed in overseas havens.
In France, Jean-Jacques Augier, President Franois Hollande's campaign co-treasurer and close friend, has been forced to publicly identify his Chinese business partner. It emerges as Hollande is mired in financial scandal because his former budget minister concealed a Swiss bank account for 20 years and repeatedly lied about it.
In Mongolia, the country's former finance minister and deputy speaker of its parliament says he may have to resign from politics as a result of this investigation.
But the two can now be named for the first time because of their use of companies in offshore havens, particularly in the British Virgin Islands, where owners' identities normally remain secret.
The names have been unearthed in a novel project by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [ICIJ], in collaboration with the Guardian and other international media, who are jointly publishing their research results this week.
The naming project may be extremely damaging for confidence among the world's wealthiest people, no longer certain that the size of their fortunes remains hidden from governments and from their neighbours.
BVI's clients include Scot Young, a millionaire associate of deceased oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Dundee-born Young is in jail for contempt of court for concealing assets from his ex-wife.
Young's lawyer, to whom he signed over power of attorney, appears to control interests in a BVI company that owns a potentially lucrative Moscow development with a value estimated at $100m.
Another is jailed fraudster Achilleas Kallakis. He used fake BVI companies to obtain a record-breaking 750m in property loans from reckless British and Irish banks.
As well as Britons hiding wealth offshore, an extraordinary array of government officials and rich families across the world are identified, from Canada, the US, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, China, Thailand and former communist states.
The data seen by the Guardian shows that their secret companies are based mainly in the British Virgin Islands.
Sample offshore owners named in the leaked files include:
• Jean-Jacques Augier, Franois Hollande's 2012 election campaign co-treasurer, launched a Caymans-based distributor in China with a 25% partner in a BVI company. Augier says his partner was Xi Shu, a Chinese businessman.
• Mongolia's former finance minister. Bayartsogt Sangajav set up "Legend Plus Capital Ltd" with a Swiss bank account, while he served as finance minister of the impoverished state from 2008 to 2012. He says it was "a mistake" not to declare it, and says "I probably should consider resigning from my position".
• The president of Azerbaijan and his family. A local construction magnate, Hassan Gozal, controls entities set up in the names of President Ilham Aliyev's two daughters.
• The wife of Russia's deputy prime minister. Olga Shuvalova's husband, businessman and politician Igor Shuvalov, has denied allegations of wrongdoing about her offshore interests.
•A senator's husband in Canada. Lawyer Tony Merchant deposited more than US$800,000 into an offshore trust.
He paid fees in cash and ordered written communication to be "kept to a minimum".
• A dictator's child in the Philippines: Maria Imelda Marcos Manotoc, a provincial governor, is the eldest daughter of former President Ferdinand Marcos, notorious for corruption.
• Spain's wealthiest art collector, Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, a former beauty queen and widow of a Thyssen steel billionaire, who uses offshore entities to buy pictures.
• US: Offshore clients include Denise Rich, ex-wife of notorious oil trader Marc Rich, who was controversially pardoned by President Clinton on tax evasion charges. She put $144m into the Dry Trust, set up in the Cook Islands.
It is estimated that more than $20tn acquired by wealthy individuals could lie in offshore accounts. The UK-controlled BVI has been the most successful among the mushrooming secrecy havens that cater for them.
The Caribbean micro-state has incorporated more than a million such offshore entities since it began marketing itself worldwide in the 1980s. Owners' true identities are never revealed.
Even the island's official financial regulators normally have no idea who is behind them.
The British Foreign Office depends on the BVI's company licensing revenue to subsidise this residual outpost of empire, while lawyers and accountants in the City of London benefit from a lucrative trade as intermediaries.
They claim the tax-free offshore companies provide legitimate privacy. Neil Smith, the financial secretary of the autonomous local administration in the BVI's capital Tortola, told the Guardian it was very inaccurate to claim the island "harbours the ethically challenged".
He said: "Our legislation provides a more hostile environment for illegality than most jurisdictions".
Smith added that in "rare instances …where the BVI was implicated in illegal activity by association or otherwise, we responded swiftly and decisively".
The Guardian and ICIJ's Offshore Secrets series last year exposed how UK property empires have been built up by, among others, Russian oligarchs, fraudsters and tax avoiders, using BVI companies behind a screen of sham directors.
Such so-called "nominees", Britons giving far-flung addresses on Nevis in the Caribbean, Dubai or the Seychelles, are simply renting out their names for the real owners to hide behind.
The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks caused a storm of controversy in 2010 when it was able to download almost two gigabytes of leaked US military and diplomatic files.
The new BVI data, by contrast, contains more than 200 gigabytes, covering more than a decade of financial information about the global transactions of BVI private incorporation agencies. It also includes data on their offshoots in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Cook Islands in the Pacific.

 

[shahbaz tariq]

yeh kya hai boss, 2 lafzon mien samja do bas

 

[khanaman]

Sort of another wikileaks. This time about top politicians and families who have stashed money away in off shore companies. This could be really big if some top Pakistani names are revealed. We will have to wait and see.

yeh kya hai boss, 2 lafzon mien samja do bas

 

[sshahid]

Sort of another wikileaks. This time about top politicians and families who have stashed money away in off shore companies. This could be really big if some top Pakistani names are revealed. We will have to wait and see.

darkhast 2 lafzon ki thi, or aap ne kai jumle dagh diye. shahbaz bhai ki mushkil tou wahin ki wahin :lol:.

 

[sshahid]

Sort of another wikileaks. This time about top politicians and families who have stashed money away in off shore companies. This could be really big if some top Pakistani names are revealed. We will have to wait and see.

darkhast 2 lafzon ki thi, aap ne kai jumle dagh diye. Shahbaz bhai ki mushkil wahin ki wahin (cry)

 

[Lawangeen]

they reaveled some canadian's name any news about pakistani politicians ?

 

[khanaman]

It will take some time

 

[Zindabad]

their are some big fishes aswell bring it on babe :lol::lol: bring democracy [hilar][hilar] financial leak