Thread by @MiamiHerald

Our reimagined newspaper features an in-depth look at the #PandoraPapers, which uncover the financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, over 330 public officials in more than 90 countries/territories and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers. 🧵

.@ICIJorg obtained over 11 million confidential files and led a team of more than 600 journalists from 150 outlets that spent two years sifting through them, tracking down sources and digging into court files and public records from dozens of countries. miamiherald.com/news/state/flo…

@ICIJorg The leaked records come from 14 offshore services firms from around the world that set up shell companies and other offshore nooks for clients often seeking to keep their financial activities in the shadows.

@ICIJorg The records include information about the offshore dealings of nearly three times as many current and former country leaders and more than twice as many current and former public officials as any previous leak of documents from offshore havens.

@ICIJorg The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

@ICIJorg The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” Konstantin Ernst and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, India, the United States, Mexico and other nations.

@ICIJorg The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it.

Among the hidden treasures revealed in the documents:

@ICIJorg ▪ A wealthy Roman Catholic order, founded in Mexico and marred by an international pedophilia scandal, holds millions of dollars worth of residential properties in Florida through offshore trusts.

@ICIJorg ▪ More than $13 million tucked in a secrecy-shaded trust in the Great Plains of the United States by a scion of one of Guatemala’s most powerful families, a dynasty that controls a soap and lipstick conglomerate that’s been accused of harming workers and the earth.

@ICIJorg ▪ A $22 million chateau in the French Riviera — replete with a cinema and two swimming pools — purchased through offshore companies by the Czech Republic’s populist prime minister, a billionaire who has railed against the corruption of economic and political elites.

@ICIJorg ▪ Three beachfront mansions in Malibu purchased through three offshore companies for $68 million by the King of Jordan in the years after Jordanians filled the streets during the Arab Spring to protest joblessness and corruption.

@ICIJorg The #PandoraPapers 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 United States and other wealthy nations.

@ICIJorg The findings by ICIJ and its media partners 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.

@ICIJorg It unmasks the covert owners of offshore companies, incognito bank accounts, private jets, yachts, mansions, and works by Picasso, Banksy and other artists. It provides more information than what’s usually available to law enforcement agencies and cash-strapped governments.

@ICIJorg The Pandora Papers investigation is larger and more global than ICIJ’s landmark Panama Papers investigation, which rocked the world in 2016, spawning police raids, new laws in dozens of countries and the fall of prime ministers in Iceland and Pakistan. miamiherald.com/news/state/flo…

@ICIJorg Right here at home in Miami, you might know Julio Iglesias as a globetrotting Latin lover, or Julio Iglesias the bilingual crooner of romantic ballads.

But do you know Julio Iglesias, the Miami real estate tycoon?

@ICIJorg A giant leak of secret offshore shell company documents shows Iglesias and his family are more anchored to South Florida than most knew, buying nearly a dozen high-priced properties that collectively are worth between $100 and $120 million. miamiherald.com/news/local/art…

@ICIJorg Almost half a world away, an embezzlement scandal is playing out now in a Vatican City courtroom with crimes alleged to have occurred in London and Sardinia.

And at least one of the intriguing figures has a Miami connection. miamiherald.com/news/local/art…

@ICIJorg Closer to home, Haitian businessman Gilbert Bigio retired as CEO of the GB Group in 2018, and is frequently referred to as a billionaire, yet hails from the hemisphere’s poorest country.

When Haitians talk about families that run the country, the Bigios invariably come up.

@ICIJorg The Pandora Papers provide a unique prism through which to view the Bigio family’s rising wealth, whose origin according to past interviews by Gilbert and the GB Group’s website begins in the early 1900s with a cotton gin and trading companies. miamiherald.com/news/nation-wo…

@ICIJorg “How do you become a billionaire in Haiti,” asked Ambassador Pamela White, who occasionally hosted Haiti’s monied elite at her diplomatic residence.

One way is to get your money out of Haiti.

@ICIJorg “Almost all of them have houses in Miami, New York, France. They travel around all the time,” White said.

@ICIJorg Visit our website or eEdition to read more.

You can find all of our coverage here: miamiherald.com/e-edition/today

@ICIJorg The Pandora Papers is a global collaboration between The Miami Herald and the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. If you like journalism like this, please consider supporting local journalists with a subscription: miamiherald.com/site-services/…