Paradise Papers provide peek into Colombian elites cronyism

[Judi Lynn]

written by Jack Norman November 6, 2017

A huge new set of secret banking documents linking world leaders with tax havens was made public Sunday. Included is an intriguing example of the extreme cronyism saturating Colombia’s economic and political elites.

In the Colombian example contained in the new documents, a handful of the country’s former and future political leaders—including current President Juan Manuel Santos—concocted a business deal in the late 1990s to disguise the ownership of a Colombian company in a haze of Barbados-based shell firms.

The new documents were released by the same group that revealed the notorious Panama Papers in 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (which includes 100 media partners).

. . .

According to Colombia’s former tax director, the count’s elite has as much as a quarter of Colombia’s GDP hidden in offshore accounts.

https://colombiareports.com/paradise-papers-provide-peek-colombian-elites-cronyism/