What is “Pandora Papers” and who are the Brazilian personalities involved

A leak of financial documents has exposed hundreds of world leaders, politicians and celebrities who have been hiding investments in mansions, yachts and other assets in order to evade taxes for the past 25 years. The report called pandora papers, released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last Sunday (3), involved more than 500 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries. The entity is the same that, in April 2016, revealed the Panama Papers scandal.

What are the “Pandora Papers”

"Pandora Papers" is the name given to the newest investigation of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a non-profit organization that revealed, over the weekend, the financial secrets of 35 world leaders (current and former) and more than 330 politicians and civil servants from 91 countries and territories.

According to the consortium, this is the “biggest leak of information about offshore of history”. There are about 12 million files, which total approximately 2,94 terabytes of data leaks from 14 law firms specialized in opening companies offshore accounts in tax havens such as the Bahamas and Panama.

What are offshore?

offshore (off the coast, in Portuguese translation) are companies maintained in tax havens and highly sought after by wealthy and influential personalities. In most cases, they seek offshore to pay less taxes or even protect your assets against confiscation risks. With this, this company will enjoy great fiscal and economic freedom, since its creation is not under the jurisdiction of the law of the country in which the owner or partners reside. In this recent case, many of the accounts were designed to evade taxes and hide assets for other suspicious reasons, according to the report by the consortium of journalists.

In Brazil, it is allowed to have offshore, as long as they are declared to the Federal Revenue and, when their assets exceed US$ 1 million, also to the Central Bank.

Brazilians have a name on the list

With 1.897 names, Brazil is the fifth country with the highest number of people cited in the Pandora Papers. Among the main names are the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes and the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto. The inventory of former deputy José Janene, one of the famous characters in the monthly allowance who died in 2010, is also mentioned in the document.

The current Minister of Economy appears as the owner of an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands, a well-known tax haven. In January 2019, when he took office, the company had a balance of $9,5 million. Roberto Campos Neto is linked to four offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands. One of them was closed last year, when he already took over the agency.

Great businessmen in the country are also among the nearly XNUMX names disclosed. Among them are the brothers Andrea, Eduardo and Fernando Parrillo, owners of the Prevent Senior health plan; the owner of the Guararapes group (Riachuelo), Flávio Rocha; the owners of Grendene, Pedro and Alexandre Grendene; the patriarch of the Menin family, Rubens Menin, and his children, who today own Banco Inter, MRV and CNN Brasil, among other companies; and the owner of Rede D'Or, Paulo Junqueira Moll. Eike Batista, a businessman who became the richest man in Brazil, also had his name linked to two offshore. The sum of the tax debt to the Union of just a few of these names reaches the incredible trifle of R$ 16,6 billion.

International entities are also among the names mentioned in the investigation, as is the case of King Abdullah II of Jordan, the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Andrew Babis, of the President of Ecuador, William Lasso and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, the leak also has names that are not directly linked to politics, as is the case with the Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, by the Colombian singer Shakira and the Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola.

Impacts on the economy

The alleged connection of the Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes and also of the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, to the tax havens revealed by Pandora Papers, led to the Ibovespa to start this Monday's (4th) trading in a fall, registering a 1,08% retreat around 11:15 am.

To try to get around the situation, the Ministry of Economy said, in a note released to the press, that all of Guedes' performance in the private sector before taking over the portfolio was declared to the Federal Revenue Service, the Public Ethics Commission and other competent bodies. “His performance always respected the applicable legislation and was guided by ethics and responsibility”, says the note.

The same tone was adopted by Campos Neto, who stated, in a note distributed by the press office, that there was no irregularity in the companies mentioned. Neto also assured that all the assets were declared to the IRS, the Public Ethics Commission and the Central Bank. “There were no remittances to companies after my appointment to the public service. Since then, for compliance reasons, I do not participate in management or make investments with company resources. Due to legal requirements, all this information was also provided to the Federal Senate,” said Campos Neto's adviser.

O ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) is already known for releasing compromising documents involving politicians, businessmen and others over the last decade. Among the most famous leaks are the Panama Papers, which took place in 2016, and the Luanda leaks, which came to light in the year 2020.

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Sources: Public, metropolises, BBC