TIRANA, May 21 – Nineteen individuals, six companies and two offshore entities linked to Albania have been disclosed in a searchable database that strips away secrecy of hundreds of thousands of offshore entities globally as part of a massive leak of the so-called Panama Papers.
The database published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows there are three Albanian individuals among the disclosed investors including Ismail Mulleti, who last April was disclosed by Israeli media as behind Global Fluids International, Albania’s fuel marking concessionaire, co-owned with Israeli businessman Assaf Halkin.
The two other Albanian names disclosed in the list are Petraq Shumka, a beneficiary and shareholder of British Anguilla-based Sapphire Enterprises LTD and Endrit Maloku, a shareholder of British Anguilla-based Gardiner Ltd. The other named individuals are mostly Arab such as such as Sultan Bin Jassim Al-Thani, the head of the ruling family of Qatar, and Sheikh Hamed Bin Hamed Al Hamed from Abu Dhabi.
Scores of people from the Balkans including tycoons, an ex-ambassador, politicians, a banker and some convicted fraudsters appear in a newly-released database of users of offshore tax havens.
The database published by the ICIJ – which stresses the fact that the people included in the list are not accused of breaking any law – includes the names and addresses of a range of firms and individuals from across the Balkans that have in the past exploited secretive offshore tax havens.
Two companies, three beneficiaries and 22 shareholders in Albania were initially unveiled in a huge leak of confidential documents from one of the world’s most secretive companies, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, with the massive leak dubbed the Panama Papers.
Last April’s disclosure of the Panama Papers scandal and the involvement of an Albanian businessman in the GFI fuel marking concessionaire sparked debates in the country, with authorities launching an investigation into the case and the justice ministry announcing an initiative for legal changes to disclose shareholders in off-shore companies investing in Albania.
Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stepped down last April after the documents showed he owned an offshore company with his wife but had not declared it when he entered parliament.
