Who’s Missing From the Pandora Papers: The Main Offenders and Accomplices
Missing from the elaborate Pandora “disclosure” are not only the main financial havens, companies and banks, but also today’s leading investors.
At a cost of many millions of dollars, euros, pesos, etc., 600 journalists from 148 media outlets and 117 countries have compiled the “Pandora Papers” over several months as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ): 2.94 terabytes of data with 11.9 million documents on shell companies in numerous financial dossiers. Tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, corruption and the like among 330 named heads of state and government, other politicians, sports and cultural celebrities, and thousands of businessmen and billionaires are suspected, are probable.
29,000 shell companies
The heads of state and politicians are almost exclusively from dozens of smaller and remote countries such as Jordan, Montenegro, Kenya, Congo, Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Colombia, Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, Qatar. Western prominent politicians are the major exceptions, and most are no longer in office: ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, ex-Italian head of government Silvio Berlusconi, ex-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, ex-Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, ex-European Commissioner John Dalli. Only three incumbent Western politicians in smaller states are mentioned: “Christian” Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra, Czech Prime Minister and oligarch Andrej Babis, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — that’s about it. USA, Germany, France, Canada, Scandinavia — all clean.
Among the cultural and sports celebrities, the ex-model Claudia Schiffer, the musicians Ringo Starr, Elton John, Julio Iglesias, the Nobel Prize-winning writer Mario Vargas Llosa, and the soccer coach Pep Guardiola (FC Bayern Munich, Manchester City) are all from the colorful pages’ picture book. From the aristocracy, a daughter of Moroccan King Hassan, the royal family of Qatar, and Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, entrepreneur and playmate of the resigned Spanish scandal king Juan Carlos I. Who would have thought it?
Among the many businessmen mentioned by name, there are similarly picture-perfect ones from Western-connected countries known for messy dealings anyway, such as India, Pakistan, Turkey, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Colombia, the Philippines and the Western-assumed territory of Hong Kong. However, there are also a few lost figures from more important countries: Robert Smith/Vista Equity Partners and Robert Brockman/Reynolds&Reynolds, two donors to the two leading U.S. parties; Alexander Temerko as donor to the British Tories; India’s richest entrepreneur Mazumdar-Shaw; the Israeli multi-billionaire Benny Steinmetz, sentenced to prison for money laundering and bribery; Formula I racing promoter Bernie Ecclestone.
In the margins, the US corporations Apple, Abbott, Nike and RJR Nabisco appear abruptly, also the most important US business law firm BakerMcKenzie (from which ECB chief Christine Lagarde comes), admittedly without naming individuals, without further elaboration and without justification for this tiny selection.
The largest unified group so far consists of 1,892 owners of shell companies from China, including a brother-in-law of head of state Xi Jinping and a daughter of ex-premier Li Peng. The second largest unified group from one state is formed by the dozen Russian businessmen described as “close friends” of President Putin. And one Svetlana Krivonogikh, once presented by german scandal sheet BILD as an “alleged” former mistress of Putin and since 20 years belonging to the jet set in the Principality of Monaco, was now punctually rediscovered by ICIJ investigators, with “alleged” 85 million euros in the mailbox.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/10/11/whos-missing-from-pandora-papers-main-offenders-and-accomplices/