Pandora Papers: Anil Ambani, the bankrupt Reliance ADA Group Chairman, owns 18 offshore companies

NEW DELHI: An International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has exposed “offshore havens and hidden riches of world leaders and billionaire business tycoons in unprecedented leak” through documents called “Pandora Papers”. 

Open financial secrets of several prominent Indian business tycoons, including Reliance ADA Group Chairman Anil Ambani, Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s husband John McCallum Marshall, corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, and Ajit Kerkar of Cox and Kings, have been revealed in the long list disclosed by the consortium.

“Pandora Papers” has disclosed that Reliance ADA Group Chairman Anil Ambani and his representatives own 18 offshore companies with an overall transaction value of USD 1300.5 million in Cyprus, Jersey, and British Virgin Islands (BVI).

Seven of these companies, which were set up between 2007 and 2010, have borrowed and invested at least USD 1.3 billion, according to the report. Anil Ambani had gotten into a dispute with three Chinese state banks in 2020, following which he had told a London court that his net worth was zero, the consortium of international journalists said in Pandora Papers.

Similarly, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s husband owns 99 per cent of Mauritius-based Glentec International which has shares of Biocon. Glentec set up The Deanstone Trust in New Zealand. Notably, John McCallum Marshall Shaw is a British Citizen, according to the Pandora Papers.

Of the 300-plus Indians included in the papers, the offshore holdings of 60 individuals and companies were investigated, the consortium said, adding that more details would be revealed in the coming days.

It noted that many Indians, including Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, re-organised their offshore assets following the 2016 Panama Papers investigation. "Evidently, Indian businessmen have been setting up a plethora of offshore trusts to project a degree of separation from their wealth and insulate their assets from creditors," it further said.

Around 600 investigative journalists belonging to the ICIJ had on Sunday published new papers over the alleged involvement of a number of world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and King Abdullah II of Jordan and other high-profile individuals in tax haven schemes.

The financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories have been exposed, according to the ICIJ.

ICIJ, a US-based non-profit group, is a global network of reporters and media organisations. Their network of members encompasses investigative reporters from more than 100 countries and territories.

The new papers exceed the dimensions of the leak that was at the centre of the Panama Papers investigation five years ago, The Washington Post reported. 

The financial records expose vast reaches of the secretive offshore system used to hide billions of dollars from tax authorities, creditors, criminal investigators and citizens around the world.

The revelation includes more than USD 100 million spent by King Abdullah II of Jordan on luxury homes in Malibu, California, and other locations.It also includes the revelation of cash secretly owned by the leaders of the Czech Republic, Kenya, Ecuador and other countries; and a waterfront home in Monaco acquired by a Russian woman who gained considerable wealth after she reportedly had a child with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The files detail the financial activities of Russian President Putin`s "unofficial minister of propaganda" and more than 130 billionaires from India, Russia, the United States, Mexico, and other nations.

In an era of widening authoritarianism and inequality, the ICIJ said: "The Pandora Papers investigation provides an unequaled perspective on how money and power operate in the 21st century - and how the rule of law has been bent and broken around the world by a system of financial secrecy enabled by the U.S. and other wealthy nations". 

The ICIJ added that these new findings spotlight how deeply secretive finance has infiltrated global politics - and offer insights into why governments and global organizations have made little headway in ending offshore financial abuses.

(With Agency Inputs)

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