336 World-class crooks – including 2 Sri Lankans
336 World-class crooks out of 8 billion people, revealed in Pandora Papers and a Sri Lankan too amongst them to keep our national identity.
Former Deputy Minister Nirupama Rajapaksa, the cousin of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, and her husband Thirukumar Nadesan, have been named in the recent International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) “Pandora Papers” files leak.
The documents allege the couple were involved in shell companies, used as a vehicle for money laundering or kept dormant for some other use, located in tax havens, which obtained lucrative consulting contracts from foreign companies doing business with the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL).
“Nirupama Rajapaksa and Nadesan, together controlled a shell company which they used to buy luxury apartments in London, England, and Sydney, Australia, and to make investments. Nadesan set up other shell companies and trusts in jurisdictions known for their financial secrecy, and he used them to obtain lucrative consulting contracts from foreign companies doing business with the Sri Lankan Government and to buy artwork. In 2018, one of the companies, Pacific Commodities, transferred 31 paintings and other South Asian art pieces to the Geneva Freeport, an ultra secure warehouse where assets are not subjected to taxes or duties,” the ICIJ claimed.
