SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A new report sheds light on offshore accounts used to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars over the past quarter-century and it includes ties to South Dakota.
The report is being dubbed the “Pandora Papers” because the findings shed light on the previously hidden dealings of the elite and the corrupt. Many of the accounts were designed to evade taxes and conceal assets for other shady reasons, according to the report.
The latest investigation dug into accounts registered in familiar offshore havens, including the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, and Belize. But some of the secret accounts were also scattered around in trusts set up in the U.S., including 81 in South Dakota, the most of any state.
In fact, South Dakota has more than double the number of other states; Florida comes in second with 37.
The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts in the Pandora papers include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, and former associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
We are digging into the “Pandora Papers” and how South Dakota law makes it easy to set up these secret accounts.
