What do you learn from the new global leakage of documents comparable to Panama Papers

The publication of the "Panama Archive" made the effect of the "Pandora box" for offshore secrets of the world. A little more than a year passed after one of the largest leaks of data about offshores, as in the hands of journalists, millions of secret documents about the owners of firms on Kaimans, Bermuda, Gernsy, British Virgin and other exotic islands were again in the hands of journalists.

A little over a year ago, 380 journalists from the best publications of the world received documents of the Law Firm Mossack Fonseca (MF). The “Panama archive” turned out to be a real treasure, because it revealed secrets to which not a single media and even not a single special service would have access, if not for a leak. MF internal documents contained information about thousands of beneficiaries of offshore companies and their transactions.

Thanks to the Panama Archive, we learned about secret accounts for billions of dollars of cellist Sergei Roldugin, one of Vladimir Putin's closest friends; about offshores of high -ranking Russian officials, deputies and security forces; About the company in Panama of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and other political leaders in the world.

"Files of paradise islands"

But so far the whole world was discussing the “Panama archive”, while at the best universities in the world, a new phenomenon of transnational cooperation of journalists was studied while politicians were preparing changes in the legislation, and law enforcement agencies only initiated affairs on the publications of reporters, the authors of the global investigation in the strictest secret from colleagues and relatives already worked with millions of new documents about offshores. This time, the internal archive of the files of the legal company Appleby from Bermuda islands fell into the hands of journalists. We called the new leakage "Files of Paradise Islands."

Like a year and a half ago, an unknown source handed over the archive of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which in turn shared it with the International Consortium of ICIJ journalists (ICIJ).

ICIJ attracted 382 journalists from 96 media from 67 countries of the world.

The only participant in the project from Russia was the New Gazeta. Throughout the year, together with my colleagues, we studied 13.4 million documents with a volume of 1.4 terabyte.

Corporations, Americans and British

Appleby, whose archive fell into the hands of journalists, was founded in 1898 at Bermuda, a colony of Great Britain. To date, Appleby is one of the most prestigious and large law firms providing offshore registration services, tax planning and corporate administration.

In addition, Appleby was considered one of the most “pure” offshore registrars in the world: the company had a strict procedure for checking customers. For example, many people from Russia Appleby refused to register offshores in connection with their family ties with officials or managers of state -owned companies or in connection with the mention of their names in the media in the context of corruption scandals.

That is why there is a huge difference between the “Panaman documents” and “Files of Paradise Islands”.

If MF customers were many officials and criminals, then transnational corporations (Nike, Apple, Facebook) and royal persons (for example, the Foundation of the Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II) were served in Appleby.

Perhaps because in Appleby questions about the origin of funds were asked more often than in MF, there will be much less heroes from Russia in a new leak. Russia is not even included in the top 10 countries whose citizens used Appleby services. The first place in this list is occupied by people from the USA (more than 31 thousand customers), in the second - Great Britain (more than 14 thousand customers).

And if the Panama Archive Russian propaganda before the publication announced the world media conspiracy against the President of Russia, then as state media will explain a new leak in which the same media participate, but the heroes - Western politicians and corporations are even hard to imagine.

Clients from Russia

Nevertheless, the names of famous citizens of Russia are also found in the "Files of the Paradise Islands". Rich Russians mainly applied to Appleby for one service - registration of private aircraft. The legal company has created for rich customers from Russia special schemes with registration of aircraft on the island of Man, which allowed not to pay VAT when importing jets into the European Union. The Rotenbergs, Oleg Deripaska, Oleg Tinkov and many others took advantage of this scheme.

In the Appleby database is also the name of Marina Sechina, the former wife of the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. For Sechina, a company was registered in the Kaiman Islands for investment in real estate in Russia and Eastern Europe.

The existing officials in the database of Appleby “Novaya Gazeta” could not be found. In the "Files of the Paradise Islands" there are only two deputies of the State Duma - Alexei Ezubov and Vladimir Blotsky.

Clients - Monarchy persons

But most Appleby customers were from Western countries. For example, the Duchy of Lancaster, which controls the assets for the personal income of the Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II, invested in the fund on the Kayman Islands. This fund, in turn, invested money in a company that controls the scandalous financial organization of Brighthouse in the UK. Brighthouse provided microloans to customers at almost 100 % per annum. In October of this year, supervisory authorities recognized the conditions of many loans unfair and obliged Brighthouse to pay almost 15 million pounds as a compensation of 250 thousand customers.

The representative of Queen Elizabeth II, in response to the request of the newspaper The Guardian, recognized the investment in the fund on the Kaimans, but at the same time emphasized that the duchy of Lancaster was unknown about subsequent investments in Brighthouse.

Appleby was also used by Queen Jordan Nur al-Hussein: it was indicated by the beneficiary of two trusts on the island of Jersey.

General NATO and pop stars

Appleby was a retired US Army General Wesley Clark, a former NATO headquarters commander in Europe. He was the director of the company engaged in gambling online games, this company had subsidiaries in offshore.

In the "Files of Paradise Islands" there are also the names of show business stars: for example, the pop stars of Madonna and Bono, who, through the company in Malta, invested in a shopping center in Lithuania.

Appleby did not answer the questions of journalists in detail, but published a statement on their website: “We are an offshore legal company that gives its customers tips on how to conduct business within the framework of the law. We are not acceptable illegal behavior. We are not sinless - it's true. When we notice that a mistake was made, we react quickly to correct it, and we share all the necessary information with the relevant authorities. ”