Documents in the Pandora Papers trove showed how the trio secretly created shell companies in the British Virgin Islands and Panama to invest in a mining business, ICIJ’s partner Convoca reported. Peruvian authorities launched an investigation into three members of the Catholic religious group Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana who are suspected of using offshore entities to launder money and hide profits from the authorities, according to local media.Babis, who lost national elections following the revelations, denied any wrongdoing.

ICIJ and its partners found that Babis, a billionaire, had used a web of shell companies in offshore jurisdictions to secretly buy the 9.4-acre property and failed to declare ownership of the property as legally required for politicians. In France, the financial prosecutor’s office told Le Monde that the agency had requested international assistance to continue the investigation into the Czech Republic’s former prime minister Andrej Babis and his acquisition of a $22 million luxury villa in Mougins, near Cannes.Other agencies, too, have been acting upon Pandora Papers findings by ICIJ and its media partners in 117 countries. “Investigators will come across a lot of evil - like that associated with the mythical Pandora’s Box,” Hessian Finance Minister Michael Boddenberg said in a statement in July, inviting authorities from around the world to join Hessian investigators to probe the data and “stop the tax criminals who harm the public.” The spokesperson did not provide further details, citing privacy concerns and “tactical reasons.” A dedicated task force is currently reviewing the documents and coordinating with law enforcement in “several” European countries to identify suspects of tax fraud and other crimes, a finance ministry spokesperson told ICIJ in an email.

The files detailed the financial deals and hidden assets of politicians, celebrities, business people and criminals in more than 100 countries.Įarlier this year, authorities in the German state of Hesse said they had acquired the data from an undisclosed source for a “six figure” amount. Led by ICIJ, a cross-border team of more than 600 reporters trawled through a leak of 11.9 million documents from 14 offshore service providers that specialized in setting up shell companies in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions. The 2021 Pandora Papers investigation was the largest investigation in journalism history. and beyond, two years after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published the Pandora Papers, authorities worldwide continue to investigate, prosecute and legislate against tax evaders, money launderers and the white-collar professionals who service them.

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