MAY 12 2016
Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s prime minister and a self-made multi-millionaire, has been named in the Panama Papers as director of an offshore gold prospecting company in a damaging revelation that emerged in the midst of a tight election campaign.
A front-page story in the Australian Financial Review on Thursday revealed that Mr Turnbull, a former investment banker, was a former director of a British Virgin Islands company set up in the 1990s by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca as part of a plan to develop a £10 billion gold mine in Siberia.
The mining venture reportedly made donations to Russian politicians while seeking a stake in the mine. The report was based on details that were not included in the publicly available searchable database of the Panama Papers. There was no suggestion that Mr Turnbull acted improperly.