5 April 2016 10:02 am
AFP: The families of some of China’s top communist brass -- including President Xi Jinping -- used offshore tax havens to conceal their fortunes, a treasure trove of leaked documents has revealed. At least eight current or former members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the ruling Communist Party’s most powerful body, have been implicated, highlighting the hot-button issue of wealth among China’s ruling elite.
The eight are among 140 political figures around the world alleged to have links to offshore accounts, after an investigation into the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. They include Xi’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui, who in 2009 -- when his famous relation was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee but not yet president -- set up two British Virgin Islands companies.