The leak of millions of financial documents known as the "Pandora Documents" released on Sunday alleged links between world leaders and their hidden assets through companies in tax havens, including King Abdullah of Jordan, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and associates. of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The research of nearly 12 million documents from 14 sources was led by the Washington-based Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a project involving 650 journalists.
The Pandora Documents claim links to 35 current and former world leaders with secret companies to hide their assets, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the King of Jordan, the Czech Prime Minister and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The group of journalists says that the new file, the largest data leak in history, comes five years after the leak known as the "Panama Papers", where data were published on how the rich had hidden money from law enforcement agencies. law.
The documents show how world leaders on all five continents hide wealth, usually in other places known as tax havens. The investigation exposes more than double the number of secret accounts in foreign countries, compared to the "Panama Papers".
The new dossier alleges that King Abdullah of Jordan, a close ally of the United States, through an account in a foreign country, spent more than $ 100 million on the purchase of luxury homes in California, Washington and elsewhere.
King Abdullah's office said Monday that the king's properties in the US and Britain are not "unusual nor inappropriate".
"These properties have not been disclosed for security and privacy reasons, not as an attempt to hide them, as these reports report," the Royal Palace said on Monday.
They added that the king's personal funds are not state money and that no public funds have been used for property expenditures.
The Washington Post, one of the media outlets that helped with the investigation, says the files include private emails, clandestine contracts and other information that reveals financial schemes and who is behind them.
The Washington Post cites the case of Svetlana Krivonogih, a Russian woman who documents say has a secret affair with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The newspaper says that just a few weeks after a girl was born in 2003, she became the owner of an apartment in Monaco through a foreign company.
The Kremlin declined to comment.
The documents also claim that the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Andrej Babis, used an account in a foreign country to purchase two villas in the south of France, for more than $ 16 million.
Mr Babis denied any wrongdoing during a televised debate.
"The money was sent from a Czech bank, the money was taxed, it was my money that was returned to the Czech Republic," he said.
The news comes just days before Czechs vote in parliamentary elections.
Documents show that even for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his partners in a film company owned a company network in tax havens.
The main aide to the current Ukrainian President, Serhiy Shefir, as well as the head of the country's Security Service, were part of a network of companies that had been exploited to buy expensive property in London.
According to the BBC, Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, saved $ 421,000 in taxes when they bought an office in London from a tax haven company that owned the building.
The BBC also reports that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, his family and close associates have secretly bought more than $ 540 million worth of property in Britain.
