A new journalistic investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) revealed on Sunday that 14 active world leaders hid billions of dollars in fortunes to avoid paying taxes.
Another 21 leaders who have since left office have also concealed property and income, according to the ICIJ’s new investigation called Pandora’s Papers, which focuses on the secret finances of more than 300 public officials, including ministers, judges, mayors and over-all generals. from 90 countries around the world. The work involved 600 journalists, who examined 1.9 million documents.
Three active Latin American heads of state stand out: Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador, Sebastián Piñera of Chile and Luis Abinader of the Dominican Republic revealed “The Washington Post”, “El País”, “BBC” and “The Guardian “, some of the media outlets that published the leaks.
According to “BBC”, Lasso, a former businessman and banker, stopped using a Panamanian entity to make monthly payments to his relatives and started using another entity in South Dakota, in the United States. The state has become a kind of tax haven on par with some jurisdictions in Europe and the Caribbean.
Meanwhile, Piñera allegedly had secret business in the British Virgin Islands, and Abinader and other family members own an offshore entity in Panama, according to the Washington Post.
The archives also include 11 former Latin American presidents, including Peruvian Pedro Pablo Kuczynski; Porfirio Lobo, from Honduras; César Gaviria and Andrés Pastrana, from Colombia; Horacio Cartes, from Paraguay; and Juan Carlos Varela, Ricardo Martinelli and Ernesto Pérez Balladares, from Panama.
The investigation also revealed that Jordan’s King Abdullah II allegedly spent $100 million on luxury homes in California and elsewhere. New details have been uncovered about the main foreign donors to the Conservative Party from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
According to the Mexican magazine “Proceso”, which also participated in the investigation, the analyzed documents show that one of the most powerful families in Guatemala hid more than US$13 million in opaque trusts located in the United States.
The files also detail the questionable financial activities of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s so-called “unofficial propaganda minister”.
Furthermore, according to the ICIJ, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s inner circle, including members of his cabinet and their families, hid millions of dollars in companies and entities outside the country.
According to the files and as reported by “BBC”, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and six family members also secretly owned at least 11 offshore companies, one of which was valued at US$30 million.
The Washington-based ICIJ gained notoriety for so-called Panama Papers. This leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed in April 2016 that prominent people around the world had hired the services of the now-defunct law firm to create offshore companies supposedly to evade taxes.