Eastern Europe's Corrupt Offshore Wealth, Revealed

What You Need To Know:

✅ One of the biggest leaks in journalistic history reveals the secretive offshore companies used to hide wealth, evade taxes and commit fraud by the world's dictators, business tycoons and criminals;

✅ “In Ukraine, it’s 10-11 billion dollars that have been lost in government taxes because of these offshores and there’s no reason to use them except to hide, to steal and to cheat;”

✅ “It was pretty much a full download of most of what was in the largest offshore registration agents in the world and one that was clearly used by 11 presidents, 29 members of the ‘Forbes’, the richest people in the world, celebrities, politicians, organized crime figures;”

✅ What leaked in early April is just the beginning of what is yet to come, warns Sullivan.

On April 3rd, 2016, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) released reports on the offshore accounts of the leaders of nine separate countries, including Ukraine and Russia. One of the biggest leaks in journalistic history reveals the secretive offshore companies used to hide wealth, evade taxes and commit fraud by the world's dictators, business tycoons and criminals. Panama Papers are documents obtained from a Panama-based offshore services provider called Mossack Fonseca. They were received by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with the OCCRP.

This was a “global effort that was done by over 100 news organizations. OCCRP was working in the area of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the CIS states,” says Drew Sullivan, Editor of the OCCRP. “We’re seeing how common these offshores are and how they’re used by the highest levels of our governments.”

“In Ukraine, it’s 10-11 billion dollars that have been lost in government taxes because of these offshores and there’s no reason to use them except to hide, to steal and to cheat.”

The data came from an anonymous source: “It was pretty much a full download of most of what was in the largest offshore registration agents in the world and one that was clearly used by 11 presidents, 29 members of the ‘Forbes’, the richest people in the world, celebrities, politicians, organized crime figures.”

What leaked in early April is just the beginning of what is yet to come, warns Sullivan. “so what happened in this data is happening just with one registration agent, it’s almost scary to see how much our leaders and businessmen are flaunting offshore companies. They are taking a huge part of our economy and depriving us of taxes.”

“I think you’ll see a lot of dancing in the days to come, on people trying to put a good spin on what happened,” he adds.

Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk and Kyiv Post’s Josh Kovensky spoke to Drew Sullivan, Editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project via Skype during live broadcast on April 3rd, 2016 in Kyiv.