So What’s different about this leak from others we’ve heard about?
Where are the 336 politicians in the Pandora Papers from? A single document sometimes contained years’ worth of emails and attachments. Some providers digitized their records and structured them in spreadsheets; others kept paper files that were scanned. Some PDFs contained spreadsheets that had to be reconstructed into spreadsheets. The documents arrived in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, Korean and other languages, requiring extensive coordination among ICIJ partners.
What’s different about this leak from others we’ve heard about?
The Pandora Papers information – the 2.94 terabytes in more than 11.9 million records – comes from 14 providers that offer services in at least 38 jurisdictions. The 2016 Panama Papers investigation was based on 2.6 terabytes of data in 11.5 million documents from a single provider, the now-defunct Mossack Fonseca law firm.
The 2017 Paradise Papers investigation was based on a leak of 1.4 terabytes in more than 13.4 million files from one offshore law firm, Appleby, as well as Asiaciti Trust, a Singapore-based provider, and government-corporate registries in 19 secrecy jurisdictions.
The Pandora Papers presented a new challenge because the 14 providers had different ways of presenting and organizing information. Some organized documents by the client, some by various offices, and others had no apparent system at all.
A single document sometimes contained years’ worth of emails and attachments. Some providers digitized their records and structured them in spreadsheets; others kept paper files that were scanned. Some PDFs contained spreadsheets that had to be reconstructed into spreadsheets.
The documents arrived in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, Korean and other languages, requiring extensive coordination among ICIJ partners.
The Pandora Papers gathered information on more than 27,000 companies and 29,000 so-called ultimate beneficial owners from 11 of the providers, or more than twice the number of beneficial owners identified in the Panama Papers.
The Pandora Papers connected offshore activity to more than twice as many politicians and public officials as did the Panama Papers. And the Pandora Papers’ more than 330 politicians and public officials, from more than 90 countries and territories , included 35 current and former country leaders.
The new leak also includes information on jurisdictions not explored in previous ICIJ projects or for which there was little data, such as Belize, Cyprus and South Dakota.
The legal entities in the files of six providers – the companies, foundations and trusts – were all registered between 1971 and 2018. The records show providers and clients shifting their business from one jurisdiction to another after investigations and resulting rule changes.
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