Close relatives of the main leaders of China have secret offshore companies that have helped cover up the wealth of the Communist elite, according to leaked documents. These confidential papers contained details of a real estate company owned by the brother of the current president, Xi Jinping, and companies in the British Virgin Islands registered in the name of the son and the son of former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. In the documents, obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ, its acronym in English), almost 22,000 foreign customers with addresses listed in China and Hong Kong. They include some of the most powerful men and women in China (including 16 of the richest people in the country), members of the National People's Congress and managers of state enterprises shaken by corruption scandals.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS and other banks and Western auditing firms play a key role as intermediaries and facilitate their Chinese clients establish funds and companies in the British Virgin Islands, Samoa and other tax havens usually related to hidden fortunes, the documents reveal. For example, the large Swiss financial Credit Suisse helped the son of Wen Jiabao to create your company in the British Virgin Islands while his father ruled the country.
The papers come from two offshore companies, Portcullis Trustnet, based in Singapore and Commonwealth Trust Limited, the British Virgin Islands and other tax havens, which help their clients establish companies, funds and bank accounts in tax havens. They are part of 2.5 million leaked documents that ICIJ examined with the help of numerous news media in Europe, North America and Asia.
Chinese officials are not required to disclose their assets, and so far, citizens have remained largely oblivious to a parallel economy that allows the powerful and well-connected evade taxes and keep their transactions secret. The increasing wealth of the Chinese ruling classes, both within and outside the country, "may not be strictly illegal," but is often linked to " conflicts of interest and an undercover officer to use," says Minxin Pei, political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California.
The Standing Committee of the Chinese Politburo is the powerful group of seven (previously nine) men who run the Communist Party and the country. The data obtained by ICIJ show that relatives of at least five current or former members of this small circle firms have registered with the Cook Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
The leaked documents include details of a company established in the British Virgin Islands, half of which is owned by the brother of President Xi Deng Jiagui. Deng, married Xi 's older sister, is a billionaire developer who is also dedicated to investing in the metals used in the manufacture of mobile phones and other electronic devices. The papers show that the other half of Excellence Effort Property Development was owned by another company in the Islands belonging to Li Wa and Li Xiaoping, some real estate tycoons who made ​​headlines for winning a contract for 2,000 million dollars (1,500 million euros) for the acquisition of commercial property in the city of Shenzhen.
Since he became the highest authority of the Communist Party in 2012, President Xi has tried to polish its image with an aggressive campaign against corruption. However, it has crushed a grassroots movement claiming that administration officials publicly declare their assets. Wen Jiabao, who left the post of prime minister in 2013 after 10 years, also wanted to give a reformist image.
The documents reveal that precisely ICIJ the son of former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Wen Yunsong, established in 2006 registered in the British Virgin Islands, Gold Trend Consultants, with the help of the office of Credit Suisse in Hong Kong society. Wen Yunsong was the sole director and shareholder of the company, which appears to have been dissolved in 2008.
Often minimum to open bank accounts on behalf of the offshore company, in order to conceal the relationship with the real owner of the account business structures are created. The papers do not clarify at all what it was used Trend Gold Consultants. Wen Yunsong, American-trained and dedicated to venture capital investments, co-founded a private investment company dedicated to China and in 2012 became president of China Satellite Communications Co., a state-owned company that aspires to be the largest satellite operator in Asia.
The ICIJ has repeatedly attempted to talk to Wen Yunsong and other persons mentioned in this report. Only a few have responded. Wen was one of those who refused. A spokesman for Credit Suisse, appealing to the confidentiality rules, said the bank "can not comment on this issue."
Records shed light also on the hitherto unknown role of the British Virgin Islands in a growing scandal involving the daughter of former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao Wen Ruchun, also known as Lily Chang. The New York Times reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid to a company that ran it, Fullmark Consultants, $ 1.8 million of fees for advisory work.
Fullmark Consultants was designed such that the relationship remain hidden Wen Ruchun with the company, as indicated ICIJ papers. Her husband, Liu Chunhang, former financial guru at Morgan Stanley, created the company in the British Virgin Islands in 2004, and was sole director and shareholder until 2006, the same year in which he took a position in the government agency that regulates the activity bank in China.
Liu transferred control of the company, as indicated by the papers, a friend of Wen, Zhang Yuhong, a wealthy businesswoman and colleague 's brother Wen Jiabao family. The New York Times reported that Zhang had also helped control other assets of the Wen family, as their investments in diamonds and jewelry.
Consortium Documents show that offshore services provider (offshore) Portcullis Trustnet UBS AG issued a bill for a solvency certificate for Fullmark Consultants in October 2005, indicating that there was a business relationship between Fullmark and Swiss bank.
The documents also reveal the activities of family members of former leader Deng Xiaoping, the former Prime Minister Li Peng and former President Hu Jintao (the complete list is available in the online edition).
One of the most outstanding Chinese characters that offshore companies created in the late nineties was Fu Liang, Peng Zhen 's son, one of the Eight Immortals of the Communist Party and prominent leader of the National People's Congress in the eighties. The leaked papers show that Fu (which has invested in yacht clubs and golf courses in mainland China) controlled at least five offshore companies established in the British Virgin Islands between 1997 and 2000. In 2000 used one of them, South Port Development Limited, to acquire a hotel in the Philippines.
Trustnet, offshore services provider, Fu helped to establish some of their companies. In 2000, TRUSTNET was one of the companies in the sector was struggling to get more customers in China, with business meetings in Shanghai offices of the then Big Five accounting firms were called: KPMG, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte & Touche and Arthur Andersen.
The audit firm now known as PricewaterhouseCoopers helped register over 400 offshore entities through Trustnet customer from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as shown in the database. The Swiss banking giant UBS helped establish more than 1,000 offshore structures for clients of these three markets, also through Trustnet.
In 2006, UBS Hong Kong advised Yang Huiyan, the richest woman in China, with assets estimated at 8.300 million, to establish a company in the British Virgin Islands. Yang, who inherited a fortune from his father 's real estate business, has refused to answer questions about your company in the tax haven, Joy House Enterprises Limited.
The following year, the Swiss bank said contact Trustnet another Chinese real estate billionaire Zhang Xin, founder of Soho China, a company that has transformed much of the Beijing skyline. Through a representative, Zhang declined to answer questions about your business on the islands, Commune Investment Ltd., similar to its exclusive boutique on the outskirts of Beijing hotel name: Commune by the Great Wall.
Li Jinyuan, business mogul and philanthropist, with assets of about 1,200 million dollars in 2011, ran seven companies in the British Virgin Islands who had helped him to register Pricewaterhouse Coopers between 2004 and 2008. According to documents Consortium, firms would be related to their Tiens Group conglomerate, which has interests in biotechnology, tourism, electronic commerce and real estate.
Among the customers who have established businesses Trustnet, are two current members of the National People's Congress, China's legislature.
Wei Jianghong, representing the province of Anhui in the Assembly and is president of the state-owned Tongling Nonferrous Metals, was manager of Tong Guan Resources Holdings, a company established in the British Virgin Islands in 2006. In 2007, Tong Guan Tongling used to invest $ 10 million on a 50 million project for the treatment of copper in Chile.
Another congressman goods abroad is Huateng Ma, the founder of China's top Internet messaging company, Tencent. Ma has an endowment of 10,000 million and is the fifth richest man in China, according to Forbes. In 2007, he was appointed director of TCH Pi Limited in the British Virgin Islands with the co-founder of Tencent, Zhang Zhidong. A spokeswoman said Ma Pi TCH is a signature of Tencent group "has nothing to do with him personally," but the company does not appear in the documents submitted by the conglomerate.
Translation of MarÃ_a Luisa RodrÃ_guez Tapia.
This article also participated Gerard Ryle, Michael Hudson and Christoph Giesen. All signatories are members of ICIJ, whose website is http://www.icij.org/ The full text in English and Spanish is offered elpais.com
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