The new set of ‘Panama Papers: Aftermath’ documents released on Thursday highlight offshore financial dealings of several Indians, including Ajay Bijli, owner of PVR Cinemas, Kavin Bharti Mittal, CEO of Hike Messenger and son of Airtel promoter Sunil Mittal and Jalaj Ashwin Dani, son of Asian Paints promoter Ashwin Dani.
The fresh revelations came to light when The Indian Express released the documents, in collaboration with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.
Here’s all you need to know about Panama Papers 2.0:
- Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm serviced accounts of Indian individuals and entities.
- Ajay Bijli, pioneer of PVR Cinemas in India, along with wife Selena and son Aamer, beneficially owned an offshore company set up to hold property in the UK.
- Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder and CEO of Hike Messenger and son of telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal are mentioned as Beneficial Owner (BO) of KBM Global Limited- a company registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) by Mossack Fonseca in December 2008.
- Khemka family, which had set up over 100 offshore entities incorporated by Bahamas law firm Appleby in the Paradise Papers revelations had similar ties to Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.
- A month after The Indian Express exposed that Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi and Deepak Madhok of the Oberoi Group were directors of a Bahamas company since November 2006, both resigned from the offshore entity on May 20, 2016.
- In February 2017, Mossack Fonseca confirmed K P Singh, promoter of real estate major DLF, his son Rajiv Singh, daughter Pia Singh and their immediate family as beneficial owners of three offshore companies.
- A day after a query on offshore ownership by The Indian Express, Shishir Bajoria, promoter of SK Bajoria Group, moved to Mossack Fonesca to get his name removed from records.
The Panama Papers investigation was released by The Indian Express and ICIJ in April 2016 with nearly 11.5 million documents containing information about Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm which services offshore companies to its clients as secret tax havens. As many as 500 Indian individuals and entities were linked to these offshore companies.
The big names of 2016 Panama revelations included famous Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan, fugitive offender Vijay Mallya and Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani.
The Panama Papers reported that Amitabh Bachchan was the director in at least four offshore shipping companies, while Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her family members were an active part of another offshore company.