The UK government’s pledge to crack down on off-shore tax schemes and money laundering has been laid bare after the majority of firms implicated in a huge leak were shown to be registered in British-administered tax havens.
Dubbed the Panama Papers, the unprecedented release maps how a global elite of one-percenters has hidden assets, dodged sanctions and evaded taxes over the last 40 years.
More than half of the 300,000 firms, believed to have used a single, secretive Panama-based law firm, are registered in British-administered tax havens. Second only to Hong Kong, 1,900 British firms, including banks, law firms, and company incorporators, feature as “intermediaries” between Mossack Fonesca and its clients.
In another startling revelation, the leak shows how the £26 million stolen in the notorious 1983 gold bullion heist at the Brink’s-MAT depot near Heathrow may have been channeled through an offshore company set up by Mossack Fonesca.
The leak of more than 11 million confidential documents held by Mossack Fonesca has been under investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) for over a year.
The investigation has revealed that six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs, dozens of donors to UK political parties, as well as David Cameron’s late father are among the hundreds of British individuals who hold off-shore assets.
Of the British officials implicated in the leak, only three have so far been named: Baroness and life peer Pamela Sharples, Conservative Party donor and billionaire Michael Ashcroft, and former Tory MP for East Hampshire Michael Mates.
https://www.rt.com/uk/338359-panama-papers-top-tories/