Pandora Papers: Everything You Need to Know

Since recorded human history, the world’s 1% filthy rich have never been held accountable for how they earned their huge fortune or if it was produced from or obtained from questionable means.

Throughout history, the 1% filthy rich have been able to get away with white collar crimes. It was partly acceptable if the ruler had stolen a large fortune from money intended for public welfare.

However, this scenario changed just eleven years ago in 2013 when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) discovered confidential documents revealing a secretive parallel economy run by the 1% ultra rich to avoid public scrutiny and get away with their heinous white collar crimes.

What are the Pandora Papers?

The Pandora Papers are a collection of approximately 12 million leaked papers which is almost 3 terabytes of data that reveal the hidden and occasionally immoral or corrupt transactions of the global wealthy and powerful, including important world leaders, legislators, business executives, celebrities, and billionaires.

Are you familiar with Panama Papers?

If yes, Pandora Papers might not be new. If No, Here’s a quick guide for you to catch up with what you might have missed.

Just like the previous leaks including Panama Papers by ICIJ, the Pandora Papers released in October 2021 exposed a complex web of offshore accounts, tax havens, and shell corporations that conceal the true ownership of billions of dollars of assets of the ultra-rich who accumulated the fortunes through illegal means.

Pandora Papers is the largest such data dump to date, surpassing the previous Panama Papers and Paradise Papers leaks.

The Pandora Papers investigation reveals the covert owners of offshore companies, incognito bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions, and even artworks by Picasso, Banksy, and other masters, providing more information than law enforcement agencies and cash-strapped governments typically have.

The secret documents link India’s cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar, pop music singer Shakira, supermodel Claudia Schiffer, and an Italian mobster known as “Lell the Fat One.”

The Pandora Papers leaks offer a unique perspective on how money and power function in the twenty-first century, in a time of growing authoritarianism and inequality.

It also demonstrates how the rule of law has been bent and broken globally by a system of financial secrecy that has been made possible by the United States and other wealthy countries.

The research by ICIJ and its media partners reveals the extent to which opaque finance has permeated international politics and provides explanations for why governments and international organizations have not made significant progress in reining in abusive offshore financial practices.

After ICIJ examined the classified material, it found 956 offshore haven firms connected to 336 prominent public figures and politicians, including as ambassadors, cabinet ministers, and presidents of nations.

The British Virgin Islands, a nation well-known for being a crucial component of the offshore system, became the home to more than two- thirds of those businesses.

A 2020 research conducted by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that at least $11.3 trillion is stored “offshore.”

It is impossible to determine how much of the wealth is linked to tax evasion and other crimes and how much comes from monies that are legal sources and have been disclosed to the appropriate authorities due to the offshore system’s complexity and secrecy.

The Pandora Box Exposed in the Pandora Papers

The wealthy prime minister of the Czech Republic, a populist, recently bought a $22 million chateau in the French Riviera that includes two swimming pools and a movie theater, using offshore funds.

The prime minister has long condemned the corruption of the political and economic elites.

A member of one of Guatemala’s most influential families, a dynasty that oversees a soap and lipstick giant that has been accused of damaging workers and the environment, has hidden more than $13 million in a secrecy-shaded trust in the United States’ Great Plains.

In the years following the Arab Spring, when Jordanians took to the streets to protest corruption and unemployment, the King of Jordan paid $68 million for three beachfront villas in Malibu through three offshore firms.

“35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists, and murderers,” the ICIJ reports, are among the important public figures exposed.

Some of the documents from 14 offshore financial service businesses that were made public in the Pandora Papers list date back tens of years ago.

By and large themselves, offshore accounts and business companies are frequently lawful, and the majority of the documents that have been released don’t truly demonstrate improper or unlawful activity.

Nonetheless, certain documents do in fact expose certain people to immoral or unlawful behavior.

Who Was Exposed in the Pandora Papers?

While reporters and investigators are still going through the hundreds of names, several significant findings have already surfaced.

Numerous celebrities’ attorneys have maintained that no illegality occurred on their end and that all offshore funds have been properly disclosed and taxed as the law of their land.

Famous musicians Elton John, Ringo Starr, Jackie Chan, Bono, Julio Iglesias, and Shakira were among the hundreds of people listed in the millions of files that were made public.

Having a net worth of over $400 million, Starr, the former drummer for the Beatles, established two corporations in the Bahamas to purchase real estate, which included a “private dwelling in Los Angeles.” Additionally, he created at least five trusts in Panama, three of which are holding life insurance policies for his kids, while a fifth trust is holding the profits from

By avoiding paying £18.5 million ($25.4 million at the time) in taxes, the ruling family of Qatar, likewise, was able to buy two of the most expensive homes in England.

Similarly, secretly worth over $106 million, Jordan’s King Abdullah II possessed 14 lavish homes in the United States and the United Kingdom. Jordan ranks among the countries that receive the most foreign aid; in 2020, the United States alone gave Jordan more than $1.5 billion in aid and military funding.

A beautiful villa on the French Riviera was bought for $22 million, but the Czech prime minister withheld information on an offshore investment company.

The ICIJ and Other Investigations

Nearly 300 investigative journalists and over 100 media partners make up the international network known as ICIJ, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

It has a history of publishing ground-breaking reports that include high-profile leaks and data dumps, like the 2016 release of the Panama Papers, which won the organization the Pulitzer Prize.

A large-scale network of tax havens created by people from more than 200 nations was made public by the Panama Papers.

An entire year later, in 2017, the ICIJ released the so-called Paradise Papers. Comprising loan agreements, bank statements, emails, trust deeds, and other papers from a Bermuda-based legal business named Appleby.

The 13.4 million documents and 1.4 terabytes of data once again revealed intricate worldwide tax avoidance techniques.

Did You Know?

More than 500,000 records from Asiaciti, a Singaporean corporation, and six million documents from company registers across 19 jurisdictions were included in the Paradise Papers.

The good news for the authorities in charge of regulations and the financial industry is that credible solution providers offer features like leaks database monitoring services.

Using these screening tools, financial corporations like banks, investment firms, etc can search through millions of leaked documents about hundreds of offshore service providers, exposing influential politicians, government officials, and top executives involved in financial crimes.

These may include crimes such as embezzlement of public funds, tax dodging, money laundering, and kleptocracy.