Tag: 3. November 2017

The echo of the so-called „Panamanian dossier“, published in May last year, was a tragedy in Malta. On Monday, October 16, as a result of the explosion of the car, local journalist Daphne Caruana Galicia died.

She has long been known for her professional investigations involving high-ranking officials of Malta, right up to the Prime Minister. She also dealt with the Panama Dossier, which featured Maltese leaders, allegedly involved in offshore fraud.

The car of 53-year-old Caruana Galicia exploded when she drove away from her house in the town of Bidniya, near the town of Most in the north of the island of Malta. The car turned over several times and was thrown off the road, the fragments scattered several tens of meters in different directions. The destroyed car was found by one of the sons of the journalist Matthew, who heard a sound from the house of the explosion, – writes MK.

Daphne Caruana Galicia, because of her investigations of corruption cases, was sometimes called „WikiLeaks by the forces of one woman“. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, offered 20 thousand euros to anyone who has information about the murder of the Maltese journalist and blogger Daphne Caruana Galicia, – continues the topic of the information publication „The Present Time“.

Galicia is a blogger and investigative journalist. In particular, she has been engaged in corruption in the last two years. After the publication of the Panama Archives, she accused the associates and wife of the Prime Minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, in possession of offshore companies that received money from the Azerbaijani presidential family. The scope of work carried out by the journalist was repeatedly assessed outside of Malta. For example, at the end of last year, the publication Politico Europe included Caruana Galicia in the list of 28 people who will have the greatest impact on Europe in 2017. And the articles in her blog recruited hundreds of thousands of visits – more than the combined circulations of all Maltese newspapers.

The scandal surrounding the „Panamanian dossier“ broke out after the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung published documents of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in early April 2016, which indicated the widespread use of offshore tax evasion schemes in the world. The scandal received the maximum publicity – documents were also published by many media, cooperating with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ).

The documents contain data on the involvement of a number of well-known world figures in tax evasion, money laundering and other frauds. In particular, this list includes relatives or close people of the President of China, the President of Ukraine, the President of Azerbaijan, the kings of Morocco and Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Based on this publication, the Attorney General’s Office of Panama began an investigation.

The Panamanian dossier contains 11.5 million documents that testify to the presence of off-shores among 140 politicians and civil servants from more than 50 countries, including 12 existing and former world leaders who used more than 214,000 offshore companies, the Interfax news agency recalls.

 

Khadija Ismayilova, a journalist and author of numerous investigations on corruption in the highest echelons of power in Azerbaijan, studied the issue of corruption in the ruling elite of Azerbaijan. After publishing about the family business of the president, Ismayilova spent 1,6 years behind bars.

Thanks to Ismayilova’s investigations and the leakage from the Panama Archives, part of the assets owned by Aliyev family members became public. But, perhaps, we will never know the exact and complete data on the status of the richest Azerbaijani family.

The Aliyev family in one form or another owns at least 26 offshore companies registered in Panama and the British Virgin Islands. According to the banking documents of Pasha Bank, the daughter of President Leila and Arzu Aliyev own Pasha-Holding.

Family members also have close relationships with the Ata-Holding corporation, which owns large stakes in the banking, telecommunications, mining and oil and gas business. According to the documents, Ata-Holding owns 75% of the companies in which Leyla and Arzu Aliyev are registered as managers, and the main control belongs to Ilham Aliyev’s son – Heydar Aliyev.

The president’s family also owns several banks, construction companies, two of the three largest mobile operators in Azerbaijan. Family members also own 11 mansions in Dubai, as well as real estate in London, Paris, Czech Karlovy Vary, Moscow, Shah-Dag resort in Azerbaijan and a resort in Montenegro.

They own several hotels and a mining enterprise Azerbaijan International Mineral Resources Operating Company.

The state of Aliyevs contrasts sharply with the state of affairs in Azerbaijan: while the ruling family is getting richer, the country is going through hard times economically, – continues the theme of the information publication „Present Time“.