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The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists or ICIJ has released the final trove of leaked data in its Pandora Papers investigation that shows three more people and two firms used Bangladesh as their address to open companies in the so-called tax haven.
The latest revelation takes the number of individuals who used Bangladeshi addresses in the Pandora Papers leaks to 11.
One of the people named in the latest leaks is a female and the two others used the same address to open offshore firms the same day, reports bdnews24.com citing a data released on Tuesday.
The three are S Hedayet Ullah, S Rumi Saifullah and Shaheda Begum Shanti. Two more names -- Saifullah S Rumi and Ullah S Hedayet – also appeared in the data.
Hedayet and Saifullah used the same address on Northern Road in Dhaka’s Baridhara. They opened a firm, Transglobal Consulting (HK) Limited, in March 2018.
Shaheda used an address, Spring Garden Tower, at Shahjalal town on the outskirts of Sylhet city. The name of her offshore firm is JAS Limited.
The ICIJ published the first tranche of Pandora Papers data with the names of hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe in December.
They included eight people who used Bangladeshi addresses to open firms in the British Virgin Islands. They are Nihad Kabir, Mohammad Bhai, Islam Manzurul, Sayedul Huda Chowdhury, Anita Rani Bhowmik, Sakina Miraly, Walter Pollak, and Daniel Ernesto Lubatti.
Dubbed the “biggest” and “unprecedented”, Pandora Papers includes 11.9m files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it – stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.
The first tranche of Pandora Papers uncovered the financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers.
The investigation exposed offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British prime minister Tony Blair. The files also detailed the financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations.
Although the ICIJ does not accuse all the people and firms of financial embezzlement, they certainly hint at attempts being made to find legal loopholes to evade taxes.