Wow now this is some investigative journalism all right.
But here are some other numbers that explain the challenge of tackling
the massive leak of confidential financial data: Somebody gave the
consortium a flash drive with about 260 gigabytes of data — 160 times larger than the 2010 WikiLeaks diplomatic cable dump. The drive included 2.5 million files containing 30 years' worth of records of 120,000 offshore companies
and trusts and their connection to individuals and firms in more than
170 countries and territories. It took 86 journalists from 46 countries
and 38 media partners to sift through the records and try to make sense
of what the ICIJ calls "the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organization."
Wow, 160 GBs of data containing 2.5 million files of 30 years worth of records. Wow now that is one huge data dump. What is interesting is the amount of money people are hiding in these offshore companies and trusts:
How much money are we talking about? The ICIJ points to a June 2012 study
by former McKinsey & Co. chief economist James S. Henry that
estimated the total private financial wealth stashed in offshore havens
at between $21 trillion and $32 trillion — an amount, the ICIJ notes, "roughly equivalent to the size of the U.S. and Japanese economies combined."
Wow $21 to $31 trillion in tax free wealth just sitting in trusts and bank accounts in offshore tax havens? The greedy eyes of millions of regulators and governments just grew quite large at the idea of getting some of the tax money from that hoard. There are 4000 US Individuals on that list. I would love to see how many of them are billionaire politicians that pound the table about higher taxes while they stash their money in these tax havens.
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