The ‘Paradise Papers’ investigation, carried out by ICIJ along with media partners across the world including the Indian Express, has unveiled offshore activities of as many as 714 Indians and corporates who have evaded taxes and hedged funds.
India ranks 19th out of the 180 countries covered under the leaked data in terms of the number of names involved, reported the Indian Express on Monday. Further, according to the report, 714 Indians find mention in the papers.
The leaked data, obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, as was the case with the Panama Papers, and investigated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), originates from two firms – Bermuda’s Appleby and Singapore’s Asiaciti – as well as from 19 tax havens across the world.
In fact, the national daily highlights that an Indian company, the Nand Lal Khemka-founded Sun Group, was found to be Appleby’s second-largest client internationally with 118 separate offshore entities.
According to the report, the papers also reveal that Appleby’s Indian clients included firms that are under the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) scanner in relation to various cases. Firms involved in the Sun-TV-Aircel-Maxis case, Essar-Loop 2G case, SNC-Lavalin Kerala hydroelectric scandal (which involved the now-acquitted Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan), and the Rajasthan ambulance scam under the CBI.
Further, the national daily reported that the leaked papers have a relation to fresh financial links in a CBI case against YSR Congress Chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Prominent Indian corporates in the Appleby database include GMR Group, Jindal Steel, Apollo Tyres, Havells, Hindujas, Emaar MGF, Videocon, the Hiranandani Group and D S Construction.
The leaked documents also show that US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, the Trump administration’s pointman on trade and manufacturing policy has a stake in a firm that does business with a gas producer partly owned by the son-in-law of Russian l President Vladimir Putin.
The latest revelations come out of an investigation led by the ICIJ, which was provided data collected in an alleged hack in 2016 of Appleby Global Group Services, a Bermuda firm providing legal services for hedge fund managers and corporations.
The leak also revealed that millions of pounds from the private estate of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II have been invested in offshore tax haven funds.
Around £10 million ($13 million, EUR11.3 million) of the Queen’s private money was placed in funds held in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
