35 world leaders hid fortunes of billions of dollars to avoid paying taxes, revealed this Sunday the investigation known as ‘Pandora Papers’. The Chilean Sebastián Piñera, the Dominican Luis Abinader and the Ecuadorian Guillermo Lasso appear in this data leak, among the 14 Latin American leaders mentioned.
Millions of leaked documents and probably the largest journalistic collaboration in history have revealed this Sunday the financial secrets of 35 leaders and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in more than 91 countries and territories.
‘Pandora Papers’, that’s the name of that latest investigation. About 600 journalists from media such as ‘The Washington Post’, the BBC and ‘The Guardian’ participated in it and is based on the leak of some 11.9 million documents from 14 financial services companies around the world. So it is the largest leak in history, surpassing the ‘Panama Papers’ published in 2016.
The investigation, conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), found links between nearly 1,000 companies in tax havens and 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers and ambassadors.
Some 14 active world leaders and 21 other leaders who have already left power appear in the documents analyzed, facing accusations ranging from corruption to money laundering and global tax evasion.
And one of the regions that occupies a prominent place in the research is Latin America. In total, 14 leaders of the region were targeted by the ‘Pandora Papers’: three who are still active (Guillermo Lasso from Ecuador, Sebastián Piñera from Chile and Luis Abinader from the Dominican Republic) and 11 former presidents.
The Piñera family supposedly sealed a millionaire sale in the British Virgin Islands
In the case of Piñera, the journalistic investigation center CIPER and the portal ‘LaBot’ revealed that the president would have done business in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. These businesses include the sale of Minera Dominga, an operation that involved businessman Carlos Alberto Délano, one of his childhood friends.
Piñera and his family were the largest shareholders in the Dominga project, but months after arriving at the Palacio de La Moneda, Piñera would have sold the mining project to Délano with an act signed in Chile for 14 million dollars and another in the British Virgin Islands. for 138 million dollars.
The payment was supposed to take place in three installments, the last of which would have been subject to the failure to establish an environmental protection zone that would hinder the installation and operation of a mine. The detail, indicates ‘LaBot’, is that the decision on the demarcation of that environmental zone depended on the Government of Piñera.
The president of Chile denied on Sunday having “participated or having had any information regarding the sale process” of the Dominga mining megaproject. “It is reiterated that the President of the Republic has not participated in the administration of any company for more than 12 years, before assuming his first presidency,” said a statement from his office.
The alleged ‘offshore’ accounts of Guillermo Lasso before he was president
Another of the active presidents that appear in the archives is the Ecuadorian Guillermo Lasso. The ‘Pandora Papers’ show that the president, who was a businessman and banker, would have operated 14 companies registered in tax havens in Panama, South Dakota and Delaware. The newspaper ‘El Universo’ explains that Lasso would have got rid of these entities in 2017, before running for election.
The investigation also reveals that Lasso would have replaced a Panamanian foundation that made monthly payments to his close relatives, with a trust based in South Dakota, in the United States.
However, the president maintains that he has “no ownership, control, benefit or interest relationship of any kind” with those trusts, and that he has always complied with Ecuadorian law, according to statements quoted by the newspaper.
For his part, the Dominican Luis Abinader, whose successful business career was developed in the hotel sector, appears linked to two secret societies in Panama. Both were created before he took office and were used to manage assets in the Dominican Republic. According to the ‘Pandora Papers’, Abinader appears as a beneficiary of these entities since 2018, three years after a law came into force that obliges companies to disclose their owners.
Finally, among the 11 ex-presidents are the Peruvian Pedro Pablo Kuczynski; the Honduran Porfirio Lobo; the Colombians César Gaviria and Andrés Pastrana; the Paraguayan Horacio Cartes and the Panamanians Juan Carlos Varela, Ricardo Martinelli and Ernesto Pérez Balladares.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II would have diverted 100 million dollars for luxury homes in the United States and the United Kingdom
But the ‘Pandora Papers’ also question the activities in Brazil of the economy minister, Paulo Guedes, and the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto; as well as the activities in Argentina of the consultant Jaime Durán Barba, close to former president Mauricio Macri.
In addition, three of the richest men in Mexico appear in the archives: the mining magnate Germán Larrea Mota Velasco; the heir to the Modelo beer group, María Asunción Aramburuzabala and Olegario Vázquez Aldir, who control hotels, insurance companies and the media.
Among the biggest revelations, changing continents, the ‘Pandora Papers’ show that the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, secretly amassed close to 100 million dollars in luxury homes in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The BBC quoted the king’s lawyers as saying that all the properties were bought with his personal wealth and that it was common practice for high-profile individuals to buy properties through ‘offshore’ companies for privacy and security reasons.
But the archives also dot other well-known faces, like those of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; the former managing director of the IMF, the French Dominique Strauss-Kahn; and the singers Julio Iglesias and Shakira or the Manchester City coach, Pep Guardiola.
The files also uncover questionable financial activities of a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cabinet.
The documents that informed this latest investigation come from financial services companies in countries such as the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Belize, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Switzerland.
In most countries, the ICIJ stresses, it is not illegal to have assets abroad or to use shell companies to do business across national borders. However, legal or not, these revelations do not cease to expose many leaders, especially those who campaigned against corruption or implemented strict austerity regimes in their countries.
With AFP, Reuters, EFE and local media
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