Express Impact | Panama Papers: Rs 13,800-cr ‘undisclosed assets’ unearthed, Rs 145-cr tax collected
The Panama Papers was published in April 2016 as a global collaboration led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) along with 100 media partners from five continents.
Tax authorities also said they have filed 46 criminal prosecution complaints, and conducted searches, seizures and surveys, in 84 cases related to the Panama Papers. Nine years after The Indian Express lifted the veil on a web of offshore shell companies created for clients to route money to tax havens, as part of the Panama Papers investigation, authorities have collected more than Rs 145 crore ($17.4 million) in tax revenue after examining more than Rs 13,800 crore ($1.6 billion) in previously “undisclosed assets”.
The latest figures were obtained from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) through requests filed by The Indian Express under the Right To Information (RTI) Act. Tax authorities also said they have filed 46 criminal prosecution complaints, and conducted searches, seizures and surveys, in 84 cases related to the Panama Papers.
The figures, collated from RTI replies in June 2024 and January 2025, also represent a significant increase over the years in undeclared assets detected via the Panama Papers investigation, starting from Rs 1,088 crore in 2018 and Rs 20,078 crore in 2021.
The Panama Papers was published in April 2016 as a global collaboration led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) along with 100 media partners from five continents.
It was based on a trove of more than 11.5 million confidential documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which were first obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The trail led to several offshore shell companies created for wealthy clients, including star athletes, top business executives and even some heads of state.
The official probes that followed yielded a variety of outcomes. Last year, Panama’s courts acquitted 28 people, including Mossack Fonseca co-founder Jürgen Mossack, of money laundering over their alleged role in setting up shell companies used in scandals in Brazil and Germany.
Cases registered by CBDTThe figure includes tax revenue and fines in cases where the amounts provided were not clearly separated. In some cases, tax authorities disclosed only how many audits had been conducted and the money thus audited — without details on how much money was actually recouped and whether any payments were made for back taxes or fines.
While several countries set up task forces or commissions in the wake of the Panama Papers, tallying the money recouped has been difficult — more so, because internal reporting systems haven’t always identified specific journalistic investigations as the source for settlements or fines.
In India, the NDA Government announced the setting up of a Multi Agency Group (MAG) to monitor probes into offshore dealings of the around 500 Indians named in the Panama Papers. The MAG comprised agencies like CBDT, Reserve Bank of India, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The MAG was reconstituted later to also monitor probes in similar global investigations that followed, namely the 2017 Paradise Papers and the 2021 Pandora Papers. In RTI replies given to The Indian Express in January this year, the CBDT revealed that it has registered 426 cases linked to Panama Papers leaks, 494 cases in Paradise Papers and 335 cases in Pandora Papers.
– with Jesus Escudero and Delphine Reuter/ ICIJ
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