Report: $2 billion in offshore accounts linked to Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle has developed a network of secret offshore companies that possess at least $2 billion in funds that were withdrawn from Russia as stated in the Panama Papers investigation, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) on Sunday, April 3rd. The organization includes, among others, three German media outlets; Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, NDR TV-channel and the magazine Stern.
According to the journalists’ investigation, one of the participants in Putin’s offshore network is his friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin. It is he who is called the owners of the companies and arranged for the transfer of tens of millions of dollars into their accounts.
The authors of the investigation refer to an anonymous source that provided the Süddeutsche Zeitung with information from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian legal firm and one of the leading offshore recorders in the world. The information includes email correspondence, official documents, bank statements, copies of passports and other documents related to nearly 214,000 companies, most of which are located in Panama and the Virgin Islands. Now the journalists have at their disposal information revealing a total of about 140 world politicians with offshore accounts.