We're going to discuss the results
of the world's
largest ever collaborative
journalistic enterprise,
involving more than 600 different
journalists across 150 different
media outlets in 117 countries.
It is called the Pandora Papers and
like the Panama Papers,
and other massive financial leak
investigations.
Before it reveals a lot more
than we knew before,
about the behind the scenes shady
financial activities of some
of the most powerful and
rich people in the world.
Including 35 world leaders,
that includes current and
former presidents,
prime ministers and heads of state.
More than 100 billionaires,
celebrities, rock stars,
business leaders.
Many of which have a shared
interest, and that is using shell
companies to hold luxury items like
property and yachts, as well as
incognito bank accounts, Picasso's
and bank seeds, and all that stuff.
And so what they found totaled
$11.3 trillion in money being
held in these offshore accounts.
I'm sorry, that's a result of
a 2020 study.
We're now seeing some of whom is
putting that money into those
accounts.
And they're fairly big names you
might actually recognize
from the news.
Like King Abdullah II who rules
Jordan, spending more than $100
million on lavish properties in
the US and Europe while his
country fell deeper and
deeper into political turmoil.
That includes a mansion in Malibu,
California, and three houses in
Belgravia in central London.
All were concealed behind a dense
web of shell corporations.
So not just like a shell
corporation, literal webs of them
design to make it as difficult as
possible to understand that this
guy was spending massive money to
buy real estate around the world.
We have other examples like a woman
suspected of being involved for
a few years in a relationship with
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Became the owner of a pricey Monaco
apartment days after reportedly
giving birth to his child.
They believe they've identified
something like $100 million in
assets being held by that
woman now.
So big money being thrown around
for the mistress.
Ukraine's President,
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was
elected in 2019 on a pledge to
clean up his country's notoriously
corrupt and oligarch-influenced
economy is also named in the leak.
During the campaign, he transferred
his 25% stake in an offshore
company to a close friend who
now works as the president's top
advisor as you do.
So again, that one of my favorite
running threads through all this
is, politicians who got into office
specifically claiming they'd be
warriors against corruption.
And the second they got in,
they begin draining tens or
hundreds of millions of dollars
out, and plopping them in offshore
bank accounts.
>> Yeah.
>> We got other examples, too but
what do you think?
>> Yeah, first of all,
unfortunately, it's one of the most
common things in the world.
So gee, I wonder if foreign
oligarchs are taking their money
out of their country.
And it's their money.
No, they're of course,
how did Putin get $100 million to
give to just one of his mistress,
Satoshi coin, okay?
My guess is that he didn't walk
into office with that
kind of money.
He walked out of office with that
kind of money or
he's still in office, and
he's never going to walk out.
So, for all the people pretending
to be on the left, go ahead and
scream Russian gate now and
defend your beloved Vladimir Putin.
But it's not about Putin,
it's about all of these guys doing
it at the same time.
>> And Cenk, really fast.
>> Yes. >> How much money would you
have to have to casually give $100
million to a mistress?
>> There is no amount of money
where I would do that.
>> Trump gave $130,000, and
he's a billionaire.
>> Correct, well- >> Who's giving
$100 million?
>> Yeah, no, Putin, look, there
are credible reports that Putin
is the richest man in the world,
even more so than Bezos.
Why?
If you have access to the treasury
of one of the largest countries in
the world, and you have
complete power in that country.
Knowing humanity, any person,
let alone a guy like Putin,
would rob the country blind.
>> Yep. >> And it appears that's
exactly what he's done.
Again, it's not just about Putin.
There's Turkish billionaires in
there, as usual, right?
And there's kings and
all these other folks, right?
>> Yeah.
>> We're going to get to why
America is not features so much in
that document dump in a second.
>> We're more moral, or ethical.
>> [LAUGH] That is not the correct
answer.
>> No?
>> In fact, it's the opposite.
But I wanted to
say one thing about King Abdullah
before Johnny gives you more info.
So, life is complicated.
King Abdullah is one of the more
secular and
stable leaders in the Middle East.
There's been less problems in
Jordan than almost any other
country in the Middle East.
And so credit to him for
managing that country in a way that
has been, even handed enough not to
cause revolutions, etc.
And he is more forward thinking,
and he has given more power,
a little bit more power to his own
people.
But is he going to take some of the
people's money and call it his own?
Of course, king is in the title.
[LAUGH] >> King Abdullah, so
like we're all shocked and
chagrined.
The king is taking
the country's money?
Yeah, yeah, of course he is.
Is he going to hide that he's got
a house in Malibu?
Of course, he's going to hide that
because back at home he's going,
[FOREIGN], right?
And meanwhile if
they find that he's living high on
the hog in Malibu,
it might create some issues.
So, that's why I use them as an
example because it isn't personal,
we have to shut down these tax
shelters through legal means.
Otherwise all these powerful people
in all these different countries
will of course rob us blind and by
us, I mean mainly their own people.
>> Yeah, we have to shut down
the tax shelters.
We also have to fight for democracy
strong enough that people actually
have the free press necessary to
know that this is going on.
And the democratic ability to have
their will be heard when they turn
against the leaders.
Many of the countries in this
are run by people that like,
it might be inconvenient for
them that people know of their
crimes but there's no way
they're ever going to lose office.
In any event, let's turn to
a couple more examples including
the President of Kenya,
Uhuru Kenyatta, who has portrayed
himself as the enemy of corruption
as so many of these has.
According to the ICJ report,
Kenyatta's family has been
accumulating a fortune offshore tax
havens for literally decades.
They own at least seven
entities based in
the British Virgin Islands and
Panama, two well known tax havens.
The offshore businesses have assets
worth more than $30 million.
Now, relative small change in
this one example for
former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
and his wife Cherie Blair.
They avoided paying over $400,000
in stamp duty,
a tax on property purchases when
they bought a townhouse in London.
The building now houses
Cherie Blair's law firm.
So, that corruption is kind of
pathetic compared to many of these,
but it's still a significant amount
of money that they didn't have
to pay that other people
presumably would have.
And look, the interesting thing is
many of these, what do you think of
offshore tax havens?
You probably think of things like
perhaps Panama or the Virgin
Islands, something like that.
But this report makes
clear that South Dakota and Nevada
are actually among the two US
states that right now are serving,
especially South Dakota,
as tax havens for
international funds of the sort
that you see in this report.
>> Yeah. >> And that is
where in theory, the US could do
something to fight against this.
And I'm sure that Kirsten Sinema
would be totally on board with
making those changes to the law.
>> Yeah, so the specifics and
the general here,
the specifics about South Dakota,
why South Dakota?
Well, it's one of the reddest and
safest Republican states, and not
a lot of eyes are on South Dakota.
So that's a perfect place to put in
a corrupt Republican governor
like Kristi Noem.
And say, we'd like to use your
entire state basically as a tax
shelter for all the crooks and
criminals in the world.
And for the Republican Party,
they're like yeah,
yes is our answer.
That's not a close one, right?
And so that, it's not like
Kristi Noem's unfamiliar with it.
Golly gee, are they
hiding trillions in my state?
Okay, that's almost the only thing
in South Dakota.
[LAUGH] >> There's a lot of COVID
too, to be fair.
>> [CROSSTALK] And Mount Rushmore,
okay.
So, we're willing participants
in this which then gets the much
bigger point about America.
There's not a lot of Americans
on the list.
Is it because we're more moral?
Don't be ridiculous, okay?
No, it's that America is so corrupt
and there's so many tax loopholes
written into our laws that a lot of
people don't need tax shelters.
>> Yeah.
>> So if you're in Europe,
especially in Northern Europe, you
really gotta hide your money, okay?
Because those are good,
mixed economies, colloquially
referred to as socialists,
where they actually try to track
you down and they serve the people.
And they have relatively speaking,
especially compared to America,
fair tax quotes, right?
In America, we're like,
the rich have to pay very little.
And by the way,
here's one enormous loophole and
another one, and another one.
You choose whichever Mack truck,
you'd like drive
through any of them.
Okay, so they don't have to bother
going illegal or
sheltered hideaways, they just do
it widen out in the open.
And furthermore, we have of course,
this is why I talk often about how
America is unfortunately the most
corrupt country in the world.
It's because we legalized bribery.
So, you can bribe politicians to
write the tax code any way
you like.
It's called a campaign
contribution, and later is called
a salary for being a lobbyist, or
a money for a speech, or
giving a Goldman Sachs, okay?
And they shovel millions of dollars
to the powerful here so
that they shred our tax code.
And they're not cheating anymore.
They just changed the rules to
favor the rich and
only the rich in America.
That's why you're not going to find
a lot of Americans on our list.
[LAUGH] Like get a load
of the Europeans and the Africans,
the agents hiding their money.
[LAUGH] Idiots.
They didn't even write bribery into
their laws.
>> Yeah.
Well, look, we're way over.
I will say that the Biden
ministration has said that they're
going to look into this.
>> Yeah, I don't know, they're not.
>> They're going to get around to
it right after infrastructure and
the voting bill, I'm sure.
Other countries like, let's see,
a representative for Putin say that
it's all unsubstantiated.
I don't think they're going to be
looking into it there.
>> [LAUGH] Putin's working 24/7
around the clock, leads,
he's working on leads.
I mean, there.
>> We're all looking for
the guy that did this.
>> [LAUGH] Right, I am,
slept all night looking for
leads in Putin's government, or
in the king's government or
in anyone else's government.
>> And Blair's going to be shocked
and chagrined.
>> Yeah. And by the way,
one of our members is 100% right.
And I just wanted to say,
Irene Rhoden,
these journalists are heroes,
#PandoraPapers.
That's exactly right.
This is what journalism looks like
as 600 journalists across 117
countries that expose
deep corruption.
American journalists,
you could learn a thing or
two from these real journalists
being super brave across the world.