Britain’s prime minister admits he was a
beneficiary of a Panama-based offshore trust set up by his late father, whose
ownership of the organization was recently revealed as part of a massive leak.
The financial leaks, released on Sunday, show how
high-profile law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama, which specializes in
establishing shell companies, has helped clients launder money, dodge
sanctions, and evade taxes. David Cameron’s father, Ian, who passed away in
2010, was exposed in the papers as running a fund under the name of Blairmore
Investment Trust, which did not have to pay UK tax on its profits.
A view of a sign outside the building where Mossack Fonseca
law firm’s offices are located in Panama City, Panama on April 4, 2016 ©AFP
"We owned 5,000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust,
which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000 (37,000
euros, $42,000)," Cameron said in an interview with Britain's ITV
network on Thursday, adding, "I sold them all in 2010, because
if I was going to become prime minister I didn't want anyone to say you have
other agendas, vested interests."
Cameron is also facing questions about his attempt to
exclude offshore trusts from a European Union crackdown on tax evasion. He
wrote to EU officials in 2013, claiming trusts should not automatically be
subject to the same transparency rules as companies.
The leaked financial records, dubbed the “Panama
Papers,” were released by Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper
working with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ),
and contain information on 215,000 offshore entities connected to individuals
in more than 200 countries and territories.
The exposé has so far caused Iceland’s former prime
minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, to step down after it was revealed that
he and his wife had bought an offshore firm in the British Virgin Islands.
The Panamanian company has denied any wrongdoing, saying the
firm has fallen victim to “an international campaign against privacy.”
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