First came the Panama Papers, which revealed personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials that had previously been kept private.
Now, the latest shitstorm to come from a hack of a law firm is the Paradise Papers: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists received the world’s second biggest data leak, consisting of offshore financial records, purporting to expose a global array of corruption:
“A trove of 13.4 million records exposes ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary, the secret dealings of the chief fundraiser for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the offshore interests of the queen of England and more than 120 politicians around the world.
The leaked documents, dubbed the Paradise Papers, show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers.
One offshore web leads to Trump’s commerce secretary, private equity tycoon Wilbur Ross, who has a stake in a shipping company that has received more than $68 million in revenue since 2014 from a Russian energy company co-owned by the son-in-law of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In all, the offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.
This one is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for the next few weeks. The fascinating wrinkle here is the alleged ties between Russia and members of the White House. I bet Team Mueller already assigned numerous staffers to this, and more to come.
Stay tuned . . .
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See also:
Paradise Papers: Tax haven secrets of ultra-rich exposed (BBC)
Kremlin Cash Behind Billionaire’s Twitter and Facebook Investments (NYT)
Here’s a guide to the major revelations in the Paradise Papers (Quartz)
Wilbur Ross Didn’t Disclose Business Ties to Putin Inner Circle (WSJ)
What are the Paradise Papers and what do they tell us? (Guardian)
What are the Paradise Papers?
