Bahamas Files Leak Exposes New Offshore Links

Five months after the release of the Panama Papers, a new, searchable database of 1.3 million files leaked from the company register of the Bahamas to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung has ‘brought to light details of the financial interests of politicians, entrepreneurs, financiers – and fraudsters.”

The new information reveals previously unknown or little-reported connections to companies owned or run by current or former politicians from the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, said the ICIJ on its website, including the European Union’s former commissioner for competition policy, Neelie Kroes, and Colombia’s minister of mines and energy between 1999 and 2001, Carlos Caballero Argáez.

Five months after the release of the Panama Papers, a new, searchable database of 1.3 million files leaked from the company register of the Bahamas to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung has “brought to light details of the financial interests of politicians, entrepreneurs, financiers – and fraudsters.”

The database was built and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington, the same group that collaborated with Süddeutsche Zeitung to publish the Panama Papers, the largest data leak in history–a cache of 11.5 million files from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that detailed the ownership structure of hundreds of thousands of offshore firms.

The data also contains trails left by Cem Kinay (German), a property developer wanted by Interpol for bribery, and accused of making a possibly corrupt payment to Michael Misick, the former premier of the Turks and Caicos islands, a British overseas territory.

As previous reports have revealed, and the latest leak confirms, David Cameron’s father used the Bahamas as a base from which his Blairmore investment fund avoided tax for three decades.

It was also the offshore address of a Mongolian goldmining company whose directors included Sukhbaatar Batbold, an entrepreneur who would go on to become Mongolia’s prime minister.

According to the Guardian, when asked about its record on fighting tax evasion and money laundering, the Bahamas financial services ministry said it was committed to transparency.

“The Bahamas does not tolerate ‘dirty money’,” it said.