Leaked Records Reveal Offshore Holdings of China’s Elite
▻http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/216-global-taxes/52567-leaked-records-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-chinas-elite.html
Close relatives of China’s top leaders have held secretive offshore companies in tax havens that helped shroud the Communist Party elite’s wealth, a leaked cache of documents reveals. The confidential files include details of a real estate company co-owned by current President Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law and British Virgin Islands companies set up by former Premier Wen Jiabao’s son and also by his son-in-law.
January 22, 2014 | ICIJNearly 22,000 offshore clients with addresses in mainland China and Hong Kong appear in the files obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Among them are some of China’s most powerful men and women — including at least 15 of China’s richest, members of the National People’s Congress and executives from state-owned companies entangled in corruption scandals.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS and other Western banks and 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. For instance, Swiss financial giant Credit Suisse helped Wen Jiabao’s son create his BVI company while his father was leading the country.
