Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption

Millions of documents show heads of state, criminals and celebrities using secret hideaways in tax havens

Chinese President Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister David Cameron. Photo: UK Government / Georgina Coupe

Files show a number of luxury yachts bought and sold through offshore companies. Photo: Twiga269 / Flickr

Mossack Fonseca co-founder Jürgen Mossack.----Mossack Fonseca co-founder Ramón Fonseca.

In this story

• Files reveal the offshore holdings of 140 politicians and public officials from around the world
• Current and former world leaders in the data include prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the president of Ukraine, and the king of Saudi Arabia
• More than 214,000 offshore entities appear in the leak, connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories
• Major banks have driven the creation of hard-to-trace companies in offshore havens

By The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists-Apr 3, 2016
A massive leak of documents exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies.


The leak also provides details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.

The cache of 11.5 million records shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.
These are among the findings of a yearlong investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations.

The files expose offshore companies controlled by the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the king of Saudi Arabia and the children of the president of Azerbaijan.

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