Offshore Secrets with Offshore Lekomipsom, a decade of offshore investigations in Cyprus.

In the last decade, a number of investigations based on data leaks from service providers and banks operating in tax haven jurisdictions have helped governments in the fight against tax evaders. Here is a list of major investigations conducted by The Indian Express in association with ICIJ and other media partners.

The Offshore Investigations (2013):

In this first offshore collaboration, data leaked from 10 jurisdictions, including the British Virgin Islands and the Cook Islands. 2.5 million documents were obtained and 86 journalists, including a representative from The Indian Express, worked on the investigation. As a result, the names and offshore investments of 612 Indians were uncovered.

SHWEITZAR DETAILS (2015):

They were founded''on leaked files of the Swiss private banking arm of HSBC. They revealed 1,195 Indians as customers of the bank, about twice as many (628) as those handed over to the government by French authorities in 2011.

PANAMA DOCUMENTS (2016):

The investigation was based on offshore documents of companies set up by Panamanian law firm and corporate services provider Mossack Fonseca. The leak included about 11.5 million files, including leaked emails between Mossack Fonseca and its clients, as well as other data formats.

The documents revealed the creation of sham structures that acted as a front for fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. The documents revealed that the real owners''were hiding behind nominees and others who were just doing the signing without any interest.

RAY DOCUMENTS (2017):

This investigation was based on records from Bermuda-based Appleby, as well as Asiaciti Trust from Singapore. The leak included 13.4 million files revealing the various ways in which companies and individuals avoided and evaded tax using artificial structures, including the creation of offshore companies.

MAURICAN DETAILS (2019):

They were based on''data from specialized offshore law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman, which had among its clients several Fortune 500 companies. The documents showed how multinational companies around the world use the Mauritius tax haven to evade taxes to countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and even the US.

FINCEN FILES (2020):

Buzzfeed News has uncovered suspicious activity reports (SARs) submitted by global banks to the Financial Crimes Center of the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Administration's Research Directorate's Financial Crimes Center, known as FinCEN. The FinCEN reports reflected the opinions of bank employees, called compliance officers, about past transactions that had financial crime indicators, or related to''high-risk customers or past trouble with the law. In fact, these were important alarms raised by banks to law enforcement.

PANDORA PAPERS (2021):

The documents revealed that banks around the world helped their clients set up offshore companies with the help of Panama-based law firm Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee (Alcogal). The leaked documents revealed how powerful people, including heads of state and those already on the radar of investigative agencies, set up complex multi-layered trust structures for inheritance planning in jurisdictions that have loose tax regulation but are characterized by strict secrecy laws.

Documents showed the ultimate ownership of assets,''placed in private offshore trust funds, as well as investments, including cash, shares and real estate owned by offshore companies.

Cyprus CONFIDENTIALITY (2023):

This is a huge number of documents (3.6 million) from six offshore service providers in Cyprus, including DJC Accountants, ConnectedSky and Cypcodirect.