enhanced_deficit
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Amid reports of deep neocons' crooked poodles around the globe stealing suit cases of cash from the poor countries they were recruited to serve exploit and buying villas in Dubai, this apparently controlled leak surfaces:
Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed in unprecedented leak
The Pandora Papers reveal the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.
By ICIJ
October 3, 2021
Millions of leaked documents and the biggest journalism partnership in history have uncovered financial secrets of 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 secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations.
The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it – stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.
Among the hidden treasures revealed in the documents:
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files and led a team of more than 600 journalists from 150 news outlets that spent two years sifting through them, tracking down hard-to-find sources and digging into court records and other public documents from dozens of countries.
The leaked records come from 14 offshore services firms from around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore nooks for clients often seeking to keep their financial activities in the shadows. The records include information about the dealings of nearly three times as many current and former country leaders as any previous leak of documents from offshore havens.
In an era of widening authoritarianism and inequality, the Pandora Papers investigation provides an unequaled perspective on how money and power operate in the 21st century – and how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the U.S. and other wealthy nations.
The findings by ICIJ and its media partners spotlight how deeply secretive finance has infiltrated global politics – and offer insights into why governments and global organizations have made little headway in ending offshore financial abuses.
An ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others. More than two-thirds of those companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction long known as a key cog in the offshore system.
At least $11.3 trillion is held “offshore,” according to a 2020 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Because of the complexity and secrecy of the offshore system, it’s not possible to know how much of that wealth is tied to tax evasion and other crimes and how much of it involves funds that come from legitimate sources and have been reported to proper authorities.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/global-investigation-tax-havens-offshore/
Related
Poodle Diaries
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Blair's Million Dollar Israeli Peace Prize
May 23, 2009 — Last Sunday Tony Blair was presented with a cheque for $1 million, the Dan David prize, at a ceremony at Tel Aviv university.
Ghani fled with cars and helicopter 'full of cash'
independent.co.uk
1 day ago — Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly fled the country with four cars and a helicopter full of cash and had to leave some money behind on the tarmac.
'Coward' Corrupt Afghan warlords who fleeced taxpayers for 20 years come to K street lobbyists
A Long List Of Corrupt Afghan Warlords
$6 mn in cash, 15 gold bricks seized from 'acting' Afghan President Amrullah Saleh's house
September 13, 2021
freepressjournal
Afghanistan Vice President fled to Dubai with $51 million in cash
US diplomatic cables revealed one Afghan Vice President flew to Dubai with 38 million pounds ($51 million) in cash, and that drug traffickers and corrupt officials were shifting 170 million pounds ($231 million) a week out of a country where average incomes were scarcely 430 pounds ($585) a year, the report said.
IANS
Kabul Published August 22, 2021
GOP reps ask for probe of ‘reckless and cowardly’ ex-Afghan leader
NYPOST
August 24, 2021
Two Republican lawmakers are pushing for a federal probe into whether deposed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani “embezzled” millions in US aid for his personal use.
Reps. James Comer and Glenn Grothman wrote nearly identical letters Tuesday asking the State and Justice Departments to investigate Ghani, who fled Afghanistan’s capitol earlier this month as Taliban forces closed in.
Ghani “may have been self-dealing with US funds intended for the Afghan people, having fled the country with enormous sums of cash totaling well over a hundred million dollars,” Comer (R-Ky.) and Grothman (R-Wis.) wrote.
WikiLeaks: Afghan vice-president Ahmad Massoud 'landed in Dubai with $52m in cash'
Ambassador in Kabul reports pervasive 'wealth extraction' by establishment and apparent powerlessness of US to stop it
Dec 2, 2010
Palm Jumeirah in Dubai where the Kabul Bank chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, owns 39 properties, according to WikiLeaks cables. Photograph: PA
Rampant government corruption in Afghanistan – and the apparent powerlessness of the US do to anything about it – is laid bare by several classified diplomatic cables implicating members of the country's elite.
In one astonishing incident in October 2009 the then vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash, according to one diplomatic report. Massoud, the younger brother of the legendary anti-Soviet resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, was detained by officials from the US and the United Arab Emirates
theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-elite-afghans-millions-cash
Offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaires exposed in unprecedented leak
The Pandora Papers reveal the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.
By ICIJ
October 3, 2021
Millions of leaked documents and the biggest journalism partnership in history have uncovered financial secrets of 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 secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations.
The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it – stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.
Among the hidden treasures revealed in the documents:
- A $22 million chateau in the French Riviera – replete with a cinema and two swimming pools – purchased through offshore companies by the Czech Republic’s populist prime minister, a billionaire who has railed against the corruption of economic and political elites.
- More than $13 million tucked in a secrecy-shaded trust in the Great Plains of the United States by a scion of one of Guatemala’s most powerful families, a dynasty that controls a soap and lipsticks conglomerate that’s been accused of harming workers and the earth.
- Three beachfront mansions in Malibu purchased through three offshore companies for $68 million by the King of Jordan in the years after Jordanians filled the streets during Arab Spring to protest joblessness and corruption.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files and led a team of more than 600 journalists from 150 news outlets that spent two years sifting through them, tracking down hard-to-find sources and digging into court records and other public documents from dozens of countries.
The leaked records come from 14 offshore services firms from around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore nooks for clients often seeking to keep their financial activities in the shadows. The records include information about the dealings of nearly three times as many current and former country leaders as any previous leak of documents from offshore havens.
In an era of widening authoritarianism and inequality, the Pandora Papers investigation provides an unequaled perspective on how money and power operate in the 21st century – and how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the U.S. and other wealthy nations.
The findings by ICIJ and its media partners spotlight how deeply secretive finance has infiltrated global politics – and offer insights into why governments and global organizations have made little headway in ending offshore financial abuses.
An ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others. More than two-thirds of those companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction long known as a key cog in the offshore system.
At least $11.3 trillion is held “offshore,” according to a 2020 study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Because of the complexity and secrecy of the offshore system, it’s not possible to know how much of that wealth is tied to tax evasion and other crimes and how much of it involves funds that come from legitimate sources and have been reported to proper authorities.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/global-investigation-tax-havens-offshore/
Related
Poodle Diaries
BBC News
Blair's Million Dollar Israeli Peace Prize
May 23, 2009 — Last Sunday Tony Blair was presented with a cheque for $1 million, the Dan David prize, at a ceremony at Tel Aviv university.
Ghani fled with cars and helicopter 'full of cash'
independent.co.uk
1 day ago — Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly fled the country with four cars and a helicopter full of cash and had to leave some money behind on the tarmac.
'Coward' Corrupt Afghan warlords who fleeced taxpayers for 20 years come to K street lobbyists
A Long List Of Corrupt Afghan Warlords
$6 mn in cash, 15 gold bricks seized from 'acting' Afghan President Amrullah Saleh's house
September 13, 2021
freepressjournal
Afghanistan Vice President fled to Dubai with $51 million in cash
US diplomatic cables revealed one Afghan Vice President flew to Dubai with 38 million pounds ($51 million) in cash, and that drug traffickers and corrupt officials were shifting 170 million pounds ($231 million) a week out of a country where average incomes were scarcely 430 pounds ($585) a year, the report said.
IANS
Kabul Published August 22, 2021
GOP reps ask for probe of ‘reckless and cowardly’ ex-Afghan leader
NYPOST
August 24, 2021
Two Republican lawmakers are pushing for a federal probe into whether deposed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani “embezzled” millions in US aid for his personal use.
Reps. James Comer and Glenn Grothman wrote nearly identical letters Tuesday asking the State and Justice Departments to investigate Ghani, who fled Afghanistan’s capitol earlier this month as Taliban forces closed in.
Ghani “may have been self-dealing with US funds intended for the Afghan people, having fled the country with enormous sums of cash totaling well over a hundred million dollars,” Comer (R-Ky.) and Grothman (R-Wis.) wrote.
WikiLeaks: Afghan vice-president Ahmad Massoud 'landed in Dubai with $52m in cash'
Ambassador in Kabul reports pervasive 'wealth extraction' by establishment and apparent powerlessness of US to stop it
Dec 2, 2010
Palm Jumeirah in Dubai where the Kabul Bank chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, owns 39 properties, according to WikiLeaks cables. Photograph: PA
Rampant government corruption in Afghanistan – and the apparent powerlessness of the US do to anything about it – is laid bare by several classified diplomatic cables implicating members of the country's elite.
In one astonishing incident in October 2009 the then vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash, according to one diplomatic report. Massoud, the younger brother of the legendary anti-Soviet resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, was detained by officials from the US and the United Arab Emirates
theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-elite-afghans-millions-cash
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