Speaker 1: Today, we're going to be speaking with Sheila Alecky, who is a reporter with
ICG and also coordinates the organization's partners in Asia and Western Europe.
Thanks so much for talking to us today.
Thank you.
So my audience has certainly heard of the Pandora papers we've reported.
I don't know about extensively, but we've reported about the Pandora papers for people
who maybe aren't familiar with what these documents are.
How do you generally summarize what the documents are?
Speaker 4: Well, I would say that Pandora Papers is an investigation based on a leak
of about 12 million documents, confidential financial records coming from 14 different
financial service providers from around the world, from the most secretive, secretive
jurisdictions including Seychelles, Cyprus, BVI and so forth.
And what these documents tell us is how the offshore financial system works, but not just
that.
Also how the global economy in a way works because the system that thrives on secrecy
and anonymity is basically a big part of the global economy right now.
Speaker 1: And some of the biggest headlines related to individual prominent individuals,
politicians, elected officials, functionaries of other kinds, well-known people.
I don't know if secretly is the right word, but certainly behind the scenes using a lot
of these other other mechanisms and instruments for their own personal finances.
Is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 4: I think so.
What we found was that more than 300 politicians, including more than 30 current and former
country leaders, used shell companies and offshore trusts to hide wealth from their
own citizens as well.
So public elected officials, such as the President of Kenya, the King of Jordan and the then
prime minister, Texu public and other prominent politicians use these kind of structures to
to hide wealth or buy real estate around the world.
And obviously, we have to be careful here.
We don't want to say that all of this is illegal.
Much of these actually is legal and legitimate.
But the problem here is actually that it allows people to avoid scrutiny.
And so it can be used by husbands who don't want their divorces to know about their assets,
as well as criminals who don't want authorities to know about their assets.
Speaker 1: How does the ICJ obtain these documents to the extent that you can talk to us about
the process?
Speaker 4: And yes, we don't comment on our sources.
We obtain these documents, and what we did initially was a fact checking most of them
and trying to figure out whether they were actually whether they were accurate and where
they were fake fake documents and the way we do this is a process that we have learned
to do over time because this is not the first offshore financial project that we do.
We obviously check the leaked documents against public records.
We always involve the journalists from many different countries who have the expertize
and the sources who allow us also to verify the information, whether it's true or not.
And as you know, we don't publish.
We don't publish the whole dataset because there are confidential information and also,
you know, information that it may not be true.
So we try to go public, publish on these stories that we are able to verify and and also comment
for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted that was going to be my next question about asking for comment.
In many types of stories, when someone is written about you, ask that person for a comment,
there's a deadline.
They have the opportunity to say something or to say no comment or to not even respond
at all.
Here the story is really the documents, and if the documents are accurate, the concept
of a comment is a little bit different, right?
Because it's basically.
What exactly are we asking for when we ask for comment about a document?
Speaker 4: Well, we want to know the context, because sometimes you don't have the story
in one document.
You may know that one person set up a company and that's it.
You may know what it is for sometimes you don't even know what the purpose of this company
is.
So obviously, we want to know.
And we also want to know the purpose.
For example, if it was for tax reasons or not.
And then obviously, you know, we also want to just give the opportunity to anybody to
to say to have their say.
And I say alone, we are about 15 reporters and editors on staff, and we sent more than
400 comments requests just for this investigation, excluding all the requests that our partners
have sent.
So every name that is ours on our story, we will will be fact checked and they will have
the opportunity to comment.
Speaker 1: Now, out of the 400, how many chose to comment?
Speaker 4: Now I don't know the exact percentage, but I must say that what I've noticed is that
over time, people, especially politicians, have developed a very good strategy and most
of them did not respond or did not respond adequately.
Or they chose not to respond to our questions and wait for after publication to go on their
social media and Facebook and, you know, give their own opinion.
They're directly to their followers.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that a lot of what is revealed is not against the law, but it
can be used in ways to circumvent reporting requirements, or there's a lot of different
ways in which these mechanisms can be used.
How much of of the investigation is talking to lawyers about, is there anything illegal
here and highlighting the illegal?
Speaker 4: A lot.
A lot of because we are journalists, we are not experts.
Obviously, we've been doing this for many years.
So there are some basic concepts and knowledge that we have.
But at the same time, you also want to be sure that you know you are up to date with
the most recent legislation or regulation, et cetera.
And also here we talk about hundreds of countries, so each country has its specific regulation.
And after Panama Papers, which is an investigation we did in 2016, some laws changed.
So you also want to be sure that what you're reporting now is obviously up to date.
So yes, we we love experts and they are they they always help us understand the context.
Sometimes when we have teams reporting teams from many different countries, we also have
experts from many different countries who kind of tell us what's going on.
Speaker 1: So for this, I want to give a little context for my next question.
In the United States, certainly, and I think this happens in other countries, too, whenever
there is a leak of information.
If you like the content of the leak, you focus on the content and you ignore how the documents
were obtained.
If you don't like the content of the leak, you ignore the content and you say, How dare
they get these private documents?
You focus only on how it was obtained when we're talking about banking records.
I mean, there certainly are privacy laws, and different countries have different rules,
the same as with medical records, with with banking information.
How does the ICJ think about that?
At the end of the day, these documents are presumably documents that are believed to
be private documents and how what is the sort of ethical approach to that?
Speaker 4: So first of all, whenever we publish a name or a story, we always ask whether it's
in the public interest.
So I'm not going to publish my neighbors banking records and public cares about that.
But I do care about a politician.
I do.
We care also about a powerful business person who may have a political ties or any impact
on a community.
Obviously, I do care about criminals.
So that's some ethical discussion that we, you know, we have always have before publishing
anything.
And then again, you go and ask for comment so you don't do it behind the back, you know,
like you always try to confront the people that you're writing about.
So it's not a surprise.
And when I say we go to court for comment, we have, you know, we we ask about a list
of five weeks before publication so that we can always ask at least three times calling.
I have sent, for example, last time I sent an email, not an email, a registered mail.
To Myanmar.
You know, because there was only a physical address that I could use and you try whatever
you can, are there.
Speaker 1: Is this the type of investigation where for your team there are physical security
concerns for the reporters that are doing the investigating?
Speaker 4: So lucky, I see this team, and most of it is based in the US or in Europe,
but of course we work with journalists from around the world and from Russia, Hong Kong,
for example, Arab countries.
And we have a lot of also Latin America.
And many Latin American countries have press freedom issues so more than they icj stuff.
Obviously, we're always concerned for our partners and we work with them every day.
We always in touch.
So if there is an issue for them, we try to help them.
For example, one thing that we do is if a partner cannot publish a story in their own
country, there may be a partner in a neighboring country that can publish that story for them
so that the person or the reporters in trouble can report on something that has already been
reported without exposing themselves.
So we try to.
So that's why collaboration is great because it also help protect each other and especially
people in more vulnerable or vulnerable situations.
Speaker 1: Whenever there are these these big leaks and revelations, there's the question
of, OK, so what is the ideal consequence or outcome with, you know, you look at the Edward
Snowden NSA leaks, and there are a lot of people who said, well, the the outcome should
be now that people have been made aware of these techniques.
Those should be changed.
They should be made illegal.
Or, you know, there's kind of like a clear path.
What's the goal here?
Is it sort of international tax and finance policy reform or what would be the outcome
that would be an ideal outcome?
Speaker 4: Well, certainly transparency is something that we would hope to have more
around the world.
You know, and after Panama Papers, for example, some countries introduced the laws to, for
example, reports record of beneficial ownership and so forth.
And every time, obviously, that we do a project like this, new loopholes emerge.
For example, this time something interesting had to do with the US.
And what we learned was that while the smaller jurisdictions, for example, like Bahamas,
were trying to improve their own system, huge economies like the US, they were actually
becoming the go to place for people to hide money.
And so this time we really hope that if the US that actually step up and improve their
own regulations Speaker 1: when it comes to people like Elton
John, Jackie Chan, you know, Shakira named named in the papers.
Talk to me about the public interest there, and to be clear, I'm not saying there is no
public interest.
It seems different than an elected official that might influence policy, however.
So I'm curious about the public interest when it comes to entertainers.
You know, Speaker 4: I understand that there is a difference
between a politician, an elected official and a pop star.
But at the same time, these people have a lot of influence, even if it's just, you know,
on people a lot of impact on on everybody.
And so they kind of like they they chose a public life in a way.
And so obviously the their their finances, if obviously if we find something that is
worth reporting, then that can be put under scrutiny.
At the same time, we always go and ask for comment.
And so, for example, the where a few of these celebrities that came back saying that they
had done nothing wrong and which we also reported like models, et cetera.
But you know, this is a system where everybody that we want people to understand why it is
significant.
At the same time, whether it while it is legitimate, in some cases, you know, you still have tax
revenues that are lost.
So we want the public to be informed.
And whether it's a politician or a celebrity that contributes to the system, I think it's
still worth talking about it.
Speaker 1: Well, it's an incredible investigation, and I encourage people in my audience to go
to the ICIJ website and there's so, so much documentation there.
We've been speaking with Sheila Allecha, who is a reporter with the ICJ.
I really appreciate your time today.
Thanks so much for talking to us.
Speaker 4: Thank you.