Argentina ranks third for offshore bank accounts in 'Pandora Papers' leak
Argentina ranks third worldwide for having the most people concealing assets offshore for tax evasion and other purposes in the so-called 'Pandora Papers' leak.
The data probed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) comes from a leak of some 11.9 million documents of 14 financial services companies worldwide.
With 2,521 final beneficiaries, Argentina ranks only behind Russia (4,437) and the United Kingdom (3,506) - countries with economies 4 and 7 times larger, respectively.
According to the investigation, most of these Argentines opted to create dummy companies in the British Virgin Islands (1,981).
Those mentioned include both the brothers of Argentina's former President Mauricio Macri, Gianfranco and Mariano Macri, in two companies which were among the beneficiaries of the 2016 tax whitewash during Macri’s administration - as well as that administration’s CIA-linked spin doctor, Jaime Durán Barba from Ecuador.
Argentina also ranks high in the Pandora Papers as the fifth country with the most firms listed, with at least 1,448 companies.
At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/argentina-ranks-third-for-offshore-bank-accounts-in-pandora-papers-leak.phtml
Argentine banking whistleblower Hernán Arbizu.
Arbizu, a former JP Morgan Chase executive, testified in 2013 on how Argentine firms and wealthy clients evade billions of dollars in taxes using banks and exchange houses - which routinely skirt the country's tight financial regulations.
Argentines, who figured prominently in the recent Pandora Leaks as well as in the 2016 Panama and Paradise Papers, are estimated by the Central Bank to hold over $250 billion (and up to $400 billion) in overseas deposits - dwarfing the $95 billion in domestic deposits.
