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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

While you were doing whatever you were doing last Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - the same that brought you the Panama papers [wikipedia.org] less than two years ago revealed itself to be in the possession of a 13.4 million leaked documents on tax dodgers [icij.org].

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.

The new files come from two offshore services firms as well as from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in jurisdictions that serve as waystations in the global shadow economy. The leaks were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a network of more than 380 journalists in 67 countries.
...
The most detailed revelations emerge in decades of corporate records from the white-shoe offshore law firm Appleby and corporate services provider Estera, two businesses that operated together under the Appleby name until Estera became independent in 2016.

At least 31,000 of the individual and corporate clients included in Appleby’s records are U.S. citizens or have U.S. addresses, more than from any other country. Appleby also counted clients from the United Kingdom, China and Canada among its biggest sources of business.

Eye peeled for news as they are published by various news outlets:

Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate [theguardian.com]

US Commerce Chief Tied to Russian Shipping Venture [voanews.com], U.S. Commerce chief Ross kept holdings in Russian-tied firm - reports [reuters.com]

Glencore's Role in Paradise Papers [bloomberg.com] "Documents cover Glencore in Congo, Australia and shipping unit"

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