Pandora Papers: report details finances of tax-evading, wealth-hoarding world leaders | Boing Boing
An investigation into the finances of current and former world leaders and their associates reveals the unsurprising yet shocking scale of wealth they hoard. Though many of the records detail shell companies, foundations and trusts used as vehicles to conceal ownership of investments, houses, yachts, jets and other luxuries—or simply to evade paying taxes—other documents are tied to financial crimes such as money laundering.
The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, and associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
… Blair, U.K prime minister from 1997 to 2007, became the owner of an $8.8 million Victorian building in 2017 by buying a British Virgin Islands company that held the property, and the building now hosts the law firm of his wife, Cherie Blair, according to the the investigation. The two bought the company from the family of Bahrain’s industry and tourism minister, Zayed bin Rashid al-Zayani. Buying the company shares instead of the London building saved the Blairs more than $400,000 in property taxes, the investigation found.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists report is based largely on leaks from 14 offshore financial services companies and the consortium has shared the raw material with media worldwide.
Frances Haugen, a former manager at Facebook, appeared on 60 Minutes to blow the whistle on the extent and intentionality of the company’s malign and amoral practices: “Facebook, over and over again, has shown it chooses profit over safety.”
She said Facebook prematurely turned off safeguards designed to thwart misinformation and rabble rousing after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump last year, alleging that contributed to the deadly Jan. 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol.
Post-election, the company dissolved a unit on civic integrity where she had been working, which Haugen said was the moment she realized “I don’t trust that they’re willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep Facebook from being dangerous.”
At issue are algorithms that govern what shows up on users’ news feeds, and how they favor hateful content. Haugen said a 2018 change to the content flow contributed to more divisiveness and ill will in a network ostensibly created to bring people closer together.
Haugen will testify before congress this week. Her appearances have the company rattled enough that it tried to pre-empt the 60 Minutes report with a memo written by top Facebook executive Nick Clegg.
Of course, everyone has a rogue uncle or an old school classmate who holds strong or extreme views we disagree with – that’s life – and the change meant you are more likely to come across their posts too. Even so, we’ve developed industry-leading tools to remove hateful content and reduce the distribution of problematic content. As a result, the prevalence of hate speech on our platform is now down to about 0.05%.
The Conservative party conference was on Monday engulfed in a growing scandal over Tory donors and their alleged links to corruption, with Boris Johnson facing calls to hand back cash and submit the party to an investigation.
The prime minister and his ministers were forced to answer a string of questions about separate donations given by two businessmen – Mohamed Amersi and Viktor Fedotov – following revelations in the Pandora papers unearthed by the Guardian and BBC Panorama.
Anneliese Dodds, the chair of the Labour party, and Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, were among those to challenge the Tories over the sources of their funding, with Dodds saying: “There can’t be one rule for senior Conservatives and their chums and another rule for everyone else.”
She added: “Boris Johnson’s Conservatives have serious questions to answer about their fundraising activities.” …
I shared an article here back in April about the trials and tribulations of Steven Donziger, a lawyer who tried to help a group of Indigenous people and rural farmers in Ecuador get some climate justice from Texaco-Chevron, after they dumped 16 billion gallons of toxic waste and created what would become known as the “Amazon Chernobyl.” Donziger ultimately won a nearly $10 billion settlement against the oil giant … who, as you might expect, did not take the loss lightly. Instead, they appealed to overturn the case by accusing Donziger of winning the case through forgery and bribery, and attacked him heavily in the courts. As The Intercept summed up in 2020:
Chevron has hired private investigators to track Donziger, created a publication to smear him, and put together a legal team of hundreds of lawyers from 60 firms, who have successfully pursued an extraordinary campaign against him. As a result, Donziger has been disbarred and his bank accounts have been frozen. He now has a lien on his apartment, faces exorbitant fines, and has been prohibited from earning money. As of August, a court has seized his passportand put him on house arrest. Chevron, which has a market capitalization of $228 billion, has the funds to continue targeting Donziger for as long as it chooses.
Donziger ended up being held in contempt of court for refusing to turn over his personal laptop and cell phone in this appeal case, and was put on house arrest for nearly 2 years while the gross situation worked through the legal system. To clarify: he was initially charged with a misdemeanor.
But now, Bloomberg reports, the case has been resolved … and Donziger is formally being sent to jail for six months while the case against Texaco-Chevron is overturned. From the article:
But U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, who found Donziger guilty of six counts of criminal contempt after a trial in July, wasn’t swayed. She detailed what she characterized as Donziger’s prolonged, repeated refusal to obey court orders, musing that “it seems only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes” would get him to properly respect the law.
“Mr. Donziger has spent the last seven years thumbing his nose at the U.S. judicial system,” Preska said at his sentencing hearing in federal court in Manhattan. “Now it’s time to pay the piper.”
[…]
The orders Donziger was found guilty of disobeying came in a racketeering suit filed against him by Chevron. In that case, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan found that the massive 2011 judgment Donziger won in an Ecuadorian court had been achieved through fraud and bribery. Kaplan blocked attempts to collect the award, and his ruling also led to Donziger’s disbarment last year.
Kaplan further directed that Donziger be prosecuted for failing to comply with orders that he turn over evidence and assign his right to attorney’s fees to Chevron, among other things.
I’m trying not to editorialize too much here — but god damn, this is utterly despicable. Texaco killed people with their Imperialist oil schemes, and avoided persecution first through government bribery in Ecuador, and then by getting bought out by Chevron (so that there was technically no more Texaco company to sue). Donziger was relentless in his pursuit of international justice, and now a few corporate-friendly judges have punished him for it.
TikTok Hero and Chevron Foe Donziger Gets Six Months in Jail [Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg]
How the environmental lawyer who won a massive judgement against Chevron lost everything [Natalie Lerner / The Intercept]
‘I’ve Been Targeted With Probably the Most Vicious Corporate Counterattack in American History’ [Jack Holmes / Esquire]
Drilled, Season 5, Episode 1: Lockdown [Amy Westervelt]
Oil Industry Links In Donziger Contempt Trial [Karen Savage / Drilled News]
Pandora Papers: tax avoidance revelations prompt outraged denials | Pandora papers | The Guardian
The Pandora Papers’ revelations prompted an avalanche of international reaction on Monday, ranging from solemn government pledges to clamp down on tax avoidance to outraged denials and a few cries of “old news”.
The leak published on Sunday by the Guardian and other global media partners revealed the leading role played by the US in the offshore industry, including in the state of South Dakota. It also showcased the use of offshore secrecy jurisdictions by world leaders past and present, as well as other politicians and top public officials.
The Biden administration said it would “crack down on the unfair schemes that give big corporations a leg up” in the wake of the Pandora disclosures. “It’s time to deal in hardworking Americans and ensure the super-wealthy pay their fair share,” the White House said in a tweet.
In Moscow, the Kremlin insisted there was nothing to see, despite the fact that several of Vladimir Putin’s friends and associates – including an alleged former lover – appeared in the data. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, said the leak was made up of “unsubstantiated claims”.
Peskov said no hidden wealth was found among Putin’s inner circle, despite the leak suggesting the opposite. “What catches the eye is which country is the world’s largest lagoon. This, of course, is the US,” Peskov said at a daily press briefing in Moscow. …
Revealed: top female Tory donor’s vast offshore empire with husband | Conservatives | The Guardian
Leak raises questions over the ultimate source of some of Lubov Chernukhin’s donations
The star prize at last year’s Conservative party fundraising ball was a game of tennis with Boris Johnson. The party’s co-chair Ben Elliot was enlisted to play too. But when bidding started there was little drama. Well-heeled guests already knew who was going to outbid everyone: a tall, outgoing blond woman from Moscow who – as one person put it – “dominates the room”. “She always gets top prize. She wins every auction,” the guest said, wryly.
The victorious bidder was Lubov Chernukhin, one of the biggest female donors in recent British political history. Since 2012, she has given the Tories £2.1m. This extraordinary sum has paid for two tennis matches with the prime minister, including in 2014 when Johnson was mayor of London, as well as dinner with his predecessor Theresa May.
Chernukhin, a former banker married to the former Russian oligarch Vladimir Chernukhin, reportedly donates enough to the Tories to qualify for membership of a small group of ultra-rich donors who meet monthly with Johnson and his chancellor, Rishi Sunak. What this exclusive club discusses is not made public. “She’s deep in the party,” the Tory ball guest said. …
