President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso. Photo: Cuenca.online.com
A massive coordinated leak of nearly 12 million secret documents is giving an unprecedented look at the covert financial dealings of hundreds of politicians, billionaires, religious leaders, drug lords and celebrities. Thirty-five current and former world leaders are featured in the documents, known as the Pandora Papers.
One of them is Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who is secretly holding millions of dollars in offshore tax havens and has spent some of his fortune on lavish homes around the world. The documents also implicate current presidents Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former associates of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
More than 600 journalists contributed to the reporting from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which was compiled over two years. The materials come from 14 global financial services firms dating as far back as the 1970s, though most of the files are from the past 25 years.
