Jackie Shroff, the Hindi actor who was last seen in Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai, has reportedly been named as the prime beneficiary of a trust set up in New Zealand by Claudia Dutt, mother of his wife Ayesha Shroff, The Indian Express revealed.
Dubbed the ‘Pandora Papers’, over 12 million documents were leaked recently that revealed hidden wealth, tax avoidance, and, in some cases, money laundering by some of the world’s rich and influential. The documents were leaked to the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It shared access to the leaked data with a host of media partners, including The Guardian, BBC Panorama, and The Washington Post as part of a massive global investigation.
The Indian Express conducted the Indian portion of the investigations.
According to the report, Shroff made “substantial contributions” to the trust, which had a Swiss bank account. His mother-in-law, the report stated, formed the Media Trust, registered with London Fiduciary Trust Company Limited (LFTC) in New Zealand on November 29, 2005. Eight years later, the trust was reportedly terminated.
According to the memorandum concerning the trust, Shroff’s son Jai Shroff (Tiger Shroff) and daughter Krishna Shroff were the other beneficiaries. The report also stated that the veteran actor made “substantial contributions” to the trust and wished to be “considered the primary beneficiary during his lifetime and his needs should be paramount.”
While the records in the Pandora Papers do not mention the amount contributed by Shroff to the trust, they show that the trust held a bank account at Clariden Leu Bank, a private Swiss bank. This account was also closed in 2013.
Ayesha Shroff told The Indian Express, “My family and I have absolutely no knowledge of any such trust. My mother, who passed away over ten years ago, was a Belgian citizen and not a resident of India.”
The reports also stated that the mentioned trust owned Millenstock Holdings Limited, an offshore firm in the British Virgin Islands.
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Among the other Indian citizens who are part of the Pandora Papers list are businesspersons Anil Ambani and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, as well as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.
The Pandora Papers are a follow-up to a similar project released in 2016 called the Panama Papers, compiled by the same group of journalists and organisations. However, the Pandora Papers is said to be even more expansive. According to a report in The Indian Express, there are as many as 12 million documents from 14 companies in offshore tax havens with details of ownership of 29,000 offshore companies and trusts.
Overseas, the Pandora Papers have exposed the dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and more.