Data leak: Monarch uses BVI firm to secretly buy US property
Yet another data leak from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has exposed many of the worlds richest persons and the lengths they have gone to hide their wealth.
The Pandora Papers — as the latest leak is being dubbed — have shown that an English accountant in Switzerland worked with lawyers in the British Virgin Islands to help Jordan’s King Abdullah II, secretly purchase 14 luxury homes.
The homes are reportedly worth more than $106 million and are understood to be located in the US and UK.
The reports, which flooded the internet for the first time this weekend, said the advisers helped him set up at least 36 shell companies between 1995 and 2017.
In 2017, the king bought a $23 million property overlooking a California surfing beach through a company in the BVI.
The king reportedly paid extra to have another BVI company, owned by his Swiss wealth managers, act as the “nominee” director for the BVI company that bought the property.”
In the offshore world, nominee directors are people or companies paid to front for whoever is really behind a company.
Over 66% of offshore havens found to be in BVI
An ICIJ analysis of the secret documents identified 956 companies in offshore havens tied to 336 high-level politicians and public officials, including country leaders, cabinet ministers, ambassadors and others.
And according to the reports, more than two-thirds of those companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction long labelled as a key cog in the offshore system.
A significant proportion of the beneficial ownership information in the Pandora Papers comes from reports generated by providers for the BVI‘s Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System, or BOSSs, established in the wake of the 2016 publication of the Panama Papers. This information is not available to the public.
Furthermore, a 2017 BVI law requires providers to report to BVI authorities the names of the real owners of the companies registered there.
The leak reportedly identified many documents containing such information.
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Isn’t BDO Behind this BOSS system?
Was his action illegal or not? Any crime was committed?
What’s the real issue here then?
It’s a tax sham. The rich and powerful shield their assets via shell companies and hide it in the BVI to escape paying taxes.
The BVI as it’s mentioned, will be penalized as an offshoring nation. We will be blacklisted once and for all by the world.
Goodbye financial sector.
all perfectly legal. All of this salacious exposure of private business but no actual laws broken
Where does it say that the BVI will be punished?
All a part of the plan to get their hands on Financial Services. The last straw to make us beg and lick tbeir boots. We still not licking, hear?
Pure ignorance.
Is this not legal? Why the fuss?
Because it reaks with stench and hypocrisy from here to high heaven.
this is nothing more than media envy
Seriously – is this news? All parties acted within the legal framework. Am I missing something? What is the issue here?
Stop wasting our precious time reading nonsense!
The point of these leaks is ultimately to point out that the legal framework locally and internationally is flawed in a way that disadvantages ordinary tax payers in various countries creating one rule for the rich and one for the average citizen, as well as enabling those who have funds from nefarious sources to hide those funds. The leaks aim to push for changes that stop money funnelling out of countries that need it.
It’s pretty simple and the claim: ‘oh it’s legal’ is a choice to wilfully miss the point. If the law is flawed, someone needs point that out, and, quite aside from the juicy gossip held within the leaked details, this is what these leaks are for.
You should be glad there are journalists and organisations digging around the activities of the the rich and powerful on behalf of the little guy.
Dude, seriously, its kind of major global news…try any “big” country news site. I think BVI news is permitted to cover it!!!!
Name and shame is the ICIJ’s only weapon.
“Only weapon”? That’s what it’s trying to do. Also known as ‘expose’ those who use obscure and expensive legal routes to ensure their taxpayers and citizens do not learn about money they have come by, how they came by it and even that they have it all.
Pretty shameful if you’re a government minister and you’ve been hiding money you should have declared, or are you OK with that?
Hello the little man sending $100.for there family’s and have to pay 7% tax
the RICHMAN don’t pay none atall
It’s time to name them and shame them of course
It’s not the people who benefit but the system that need to change, as long as the system remains the same those that have acquired privilege through it will continue to use that privilege and why should they feel guilty about it?
What about Tony Blair? Leaving him out are we?
Tony Blair bought a company that owned a property, then immediately transferred the UK property out of the offshore company and dissolved it. So what did he do that was so wrong?? Nothing.
“Yet another data leak from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has exposed many of the worlds richest persons and the lengths they have gone to hide their wealth.”
Yet they send their hinch men here in positions of law enforcement to look into and question wealth of regular people who have worked hard for generations, who have never benefitted from the wealth producing slave industry, and are yet to be paid for their labour and wealth it/they produced..
We are yet to sit at the economic table and eat meat and drink wine.
Instead, we are still under the table picking at crmbs. Yet some have the audacity to question a bit of wealth some have accrued.
“In the offshore world, nominee directors are people or companies paid to front for whoever is really behind a company.”
Wrong. Lots of people act as directors of companies that they don’t own. These journalists don’t even know the difference between nominee shareholders and nominee directors.
I guess these guys never have to cash a check or deposit money. If they ever had to wait in line for an hour and a half like the rest of us they would flee.
There is no chance I would ever consider dropping a million dollars in a BVI bank. I would be terrified that I would call to get the money and they would just say “it not we”. These knuckleheads’ clearly have many many millions laying around, so if a few go missing – no big deal…
Why is no-one calling this what it is, a bunch of dodgy Indians in a coordinated cyber crime attack. Who cares if the rich are exposed but this is not a ‘leak’, it is a criminal enterprise stealing data. If we condone this then no business is safe. The criminals at ICIJ should be prosecuted for theft. If the ICIJ really cared about taxes then go after the biggest dodgers, mafia, underworld, black market drugs, gambling, prostitution, trafficking, money laundering
I wish i could like your comment 50 million times.
“Dodgy Indians”? Sounds like a wild and strangely racist assertion.
“If we condone this, then no business is safe”. These people are here for the secrecy – its the selling point of your whole business – so, considering they are the rich and powerful of the world, why would you not expect journalists to try and find out why that secrecy is so important to them?
In many cases it might be legit. But in many others it’s dirty so denying the industry is deeply problematic is absurd and deluded.
“Go after the biggest dodgers, mafia, underworld, black market drugs, gambling, prostitution, trafficking, money laundering”.
No, that’s what law enforcement does, and your suggestion that journalists should call out mafia dons or street workers for not paying their taxes tells us everything we need to know about how serious your argument is. You know very well that these leaks regularly expose illegality and hypocrisy among people who’s public image is ‘clean’. You should be glad there are people digging around on your behalf.