Nearly 22,000 mainland Chinese and Hong Kong citizens have stashed up to US$4 trillion in offshore tax havens in places like the Caribbean and the South Pacific, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The ICIJ report is based on more that 2.5 million leaked documents originated from offshore firms Portcullis TrustNet (based in Singapore) and BVI-based Commonwealth Trust which help clients move their money offshore.
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The report names more than a dozen of China’s wealthiest citizens, as well as relatives of top officials, including those of the country’s president, Xi Jinping; the former prime minister Wen Jiabao; and descendants of the governing Communist Party’s revolutionary founders.
According to the report, prominent finance companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS and other accounting firms play a key role as middlemen in helping Chinese clients set up trusts and companies in the British Virgin Islands, Samoa and other offshore centers usually associated with hidden wealth, the records show.
The report says that Swiss financial giant Credit Suisse helped Wen Jiabao’s son create his BVI company while his father was leading the country.
The websites of the ICIJ and its media partners who had published the investigation were all blocked in China.
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By GlobalData
