Beginning October 3, 2021, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 91 media organizations published 11.9 million leaked documents totaling 2.9 terabytes. The records, mostly dated 1996–2020, came from 14 offshore service providers in jurisdictions including Panama, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates. They identified 35 current and former national leaders, more than 330 politicians, 130 Forbes-listed billionaires, and over 29,000 offshore accounts. The files showed how secrecy jurisdictions and professional intermediaries enabled wealthy clients to hold property and companies beyond ordinary public scrutiny, although some arrangements were legal under applicable national tax laws.
The documents detailed King Abdullah II of Jordan’s reported investment of more than $100 million in United States and British property, the Aliyev family’s reported £31 million profit on a 2018 London office sale, and a £6.45 million London property acquisition involving a company controlled by Cherie Blair that avoided an estimated £312,000 in stamp duty. The investigation also linked six members of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family to 13 offshore companies and identified Alcogal as having created at least 14,000 shell companies and trusts. The ICIJ did not identify its source, and the supplied record does not establish uniform criminal findings or a single regulatory penalty; the lasting consequence was expanded international scrutiny of beneficial-ownership disclosure, offshore tax practices, and the financial firms that structure them.
