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About the "archive" Pandora"

Roman Anin 10/03/2021SHARE

Everything you need to know about the largest data leak about offshore owners in world history

More than a year ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) obtained internal documents from 14 offshore registrars around the world from an anonymous source. This was the largest leak of information about the owners of offshore companies in history: 12 million documents, three terabytes of data. We called it "Pandora's archive." We are more than 600 journalists from 117 countries who were involved in the investigation by ICIJ. Read "Pandora's Archives"HERE .

More than 150 media outlets participated in the project. These include ABC from Australia, Reykjavik Media from Iceland, Indian Express from India, La Nacion from Argentina, The Guardian and BBC from the UK, The Washington Post and Miami Herald from the USA, Le Monde from France and many others. The only participant in the project from Russia was “Important Stories”. In terms of the number of reporters, this is the largest joint investigation in the history of journalism.

What specific data are we talking about?

“Pandora Documents” is information about the owners of almost 30 thousand offshore companies from around the world. The archive also contains internal correspondence from lawyers of offshore registrars, data on transactions and accounts of offshore companies in banks in Switzerland, Great Britain, Cyprus and other countries of the world.

Can this data be trusted?

Yes. We double-checked them using many open sources. We also sent requests to all people whose offshore companies interested us. Many of them confirmed that the information about them in the “Pandora Archive” is correct. You will find comments from all the people who responded to our requests in the texts of the project.

What is offshore?

Offshore companies are companies registered in small island states. First of all, these are the Caribbean islands: British Virgin Islands, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands. There are also offshore companies in the Indian Ocean: for example, Mauritius or the Seychelles.

One of the main reasons why offshore companies are so popular among businessmen is the favorable tax regime. Companies registered in offshore jurisdictions are either exempt from paying taxes or pay them at very low rates.

Are offshore companies illegal?

Not at all. Owning an offshore company is not a crime. Moreover, in many cases they can be a blessing. For example, offshore companies can open accounts in foreign banks, which is necessary for international transactions and investments.

In addition, offshore companies are very popular among businessmen from corrupt and authoritarian countries, where there is no independent judicial system, and criminal cases are used to put pressure on business and take over enterprises. If your business has an offshore jurisdiction - for example, a Russian company is owned by a company from the British Virgin Islands - then, in the event of attacks, you will be able to seek protection in the UK court.

For this reason, Russian citizens became leaders in the number of offshore companies registered in their name: the “Pandora Archive” contained information about 4.5 thousand beneficiaries from Russia.

If offshore companies are legal, why write about them?

The advantages of offshore companies are often used by corrupt officials and fraudsters to commit crimes. Firstly, funds stolen at home can be withdrawn to offshore accounts abroad. Secondly, the corporate registries of most island countries do not publicly disclose company ownership. Therefore, with the help of offshore companies, you can secretly own various assets - palaces, planes, enterprises.

“Important stories” were searched in the “Pandora archive”, first of all, for companies owned by Russian officials, their relatives and immediate circle. We were able to find several specific cases of violation of the law by Russian civil servants.

But it's not just a matter of formal violation of the law. The value of the “Pandora Archive” is not that several officials can be brought to justice—this is impossible to imagine in Russia—but that these documents are indisputable evidence of the hypocrisy of the Russian government.

State propagandists tell us day and night about how the insidious West is plotting against our country. Russian authorities have passed countless laws in recent years that isolate the country from the rest of the world. Today, any Russian citizen who runs social networks can become a “foreign agent” if he receives a transfer from abroad (even a birthday gift from relatives). Under this law, dozens of independent journalists and media outlets, including Important Stories, have already been recognized as “foreign agents.”

“Pandora's Archive” proves: despite all the prohibitions and loud words about patriotism, the Russian authorities and their families secretly, through offshore companies, enjoy all the benefits of the Western world. They are in no danger for the billions of rubles withdrawn to accounts in Western banks. For a penny from abroad, we can first be recognized as “foreign agents” and then put in prison.

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What other officials were found in the archive?

The “Pandora documents” contained information about the offshore companies of more than 330 politicians from more than 90 countries. Among them are 35 former and current heads of state. For example, the archive contains data on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and many others.

Have similar leaks happened before and what did they lead to?

The last time a similar scale leak of data about offshore owners occurred five years ago, when the Panama Papers was published. Then an anonymous source handed over to journalists of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung internal documents of the offshore registrar Mossack Fonseca. Süddeutsche Zeitung, having assessed the scale of the leak (it was smaller than the “Pandora archive”), shared the data with ICIJ in order to organize a joint investigation together with other media outlets around the world. The only participants in this project from Russia were the current journalists of “Important Stories”.

The publication of the Panama Papers led to reforms of the global financial system, the resignation of several high-ranking officials and the initiation of criminal cases in different countries of the world. But not in ours.

Five years ago, Russian officials also became one of the leaders in the number of offshore companies they owned. The key story of the entire project was the investigation into the offshore empire with a turnover of billions of dollars of cellist Sergei Roldugin, one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends, the godfather of his eldest daughter. Putin called the publication of the Panama Papers a “purposeful stuffing”: “The ears of Western customers are sticking out everywhere,” he added.

In the “Pandora archive”, “Important Stories” also discovered many offshore companies of friends and inner circle of the Russian President.

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