This week’s headlines are ablaze with news of the Pandora Papers, the biggest ever leak of offshore financial secrets that detail hidden assets of the world’s richest individuals. While other scandalous data leaks have happened before, most notably the Panama Papers in 2016 and the Paradise Papers in ’17, none matches the scale of the Pandora Papers, in which 11.9 million files of confidential documents have become public knowledge via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), and thanks to anonymous tipsters. The documents expose secret deals made by dozens of world leaders and billionaires, revealing staggering statistics: namely, that a whopping $32 trillion of “secret” shadow wealth may be hidden in global tax havens, safely out of reach from Uncle Sam and his global peers.
