Last year, it was Swiss Leaks, a global list of over 1,100 Indians with secret bank accounts in HSBC Geneva, which led to the debate over black money parked overseas. Now comes, ‘The Panama Papers leak.’

The massive leak of over 11 million tax documents of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, as exposed by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), features over 500 Indians including politicians, businessmen and Bollywood stars linked to offshore firms. According to the documents, the Indians include actors Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, corporates including DLF owner KP Singh, famed lawyer Harish Salve, Sameer Gehlaut of the Indiabulls group, Onkar Kanwar of the Apollo group, Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani, and others. Two politicians who figure on the list are Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal, the former chief of the Delhi unit of Loksatta Party.

On Monday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a law firm headquartered in tax haven Panama, with a network across 78 countries, has published one of the world’s biggest leaks of documents related to secret offshore accounts held by the world’s big and mighty. These documents were leaked from Mossack Fonseca, a secretive Panama-based law firm that helps people set up and acquire firms in tax havens around the world. Although offshore entities are not illegal, these companies are an easy way out for money laundering and tax evasion.

The files are reportedly only the first installment of the leak, now known as “The Panama Papers”, and were first provided by an anonymous source to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

The revelations

The extensive investigation by a coalition of media including ‘The Indian Express’ revealed that they violated tax rules or masked ownership of firms they allegedly set up abroad.

According to the leaked papers, Amitabh Bachchan is a director of four shipping companies set up in the British Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. Aishwarya Rai, actress and Bachchan’s daughter-in-law was a director at Amic Partners Limited, a company in the British Virgin Islands before her status was changed to that of a shareholder. Even her father Kotedadi Ramana Rai Krishna Rai, mother Vrinda Krishna Raj Rai, and brother Aditya Rai were registered as Amic directors. The company was dissolved in 2008, a year after she married Amitabh Bachchan’s son, Abhishek.

K P Singh, the founder of Delhi-based DLF, reportedly owned a company in the British Virgin Islands in 2010, along with his family. Sameer Gehlaut, owner of real estate firm Indiabulls bought three properties in London through family firms registered in Karnal, Delhi, Bahamas, Jersey and the UK. These properties are being developed into residential and hospitality projects. The transactions involved a complex network of companies all leading to the SG Family Trust owned by Sumita Singh, a former MLA and the Haryana Mahila Congress head, and her husband Jagdeep Singh Virk. These two are the parents of Divya Gehlaut, Sameer’s wife.

According to the documents, corporate lawyer Salve and his family members reportedly set up three offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands. Omkar Kanwar, chairman of Apollo Tyres, set up an offshore company in 2010 and two trusts in the British Virgin Islands in 2014.

Not only Indians, Mossack Fonseca’s documents reveal big names from around the world, including Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, Argentinian football star Lionel Messi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif.