April 4, 2016
A massive leak of 11.5 million tax documents has exposed the secret offshore dealings of aides to Russian president Vladimir Putin, world leaders and celebrities including Barcelona forward Lionel Messi. The investigations allege close associates of Putin, who is not himself named in the documents, “secretly shuffled as much as USD 2 billion through banks and shadow companies”.
Twelve current or former heads of state are named in the investigations, including the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the president of Ukraine and the king of Saudi Arabia, as well as sporting and movie stars like Jackie Chan.
They allege Chinese President Xi Jinping’s family has links to offshore accounts, as did the father of British Premier David Cameron, and claim Iceland’s prime minister secretly owned millions of dollars of bank bonds during the financial crisis.