Offshore Secrets of the Rich Exposed Panorama

Tonight on Panorama...

..the offshore secrets of the rich and powerful, out in the open.

Did you, sir, have tens of millions in an offshore trust

that you secretly controlled? Yes or no, sir?

Is that yes or no, sir?

A huge leak of documents reveals the stories they wanted to keep hidden.

It's a major political explosion.

There's the senior Trump official

who does business with the Russians...

Under the current system, it's easy to get dirty.

Don't go there, man. Don't go there.

..questions at the heart of the national game...

-Is Mr Usmanov the real owner of Everton, sir?

-Are you crazy?

No, sir, cos your cash...

Then tell me, have you seen a psychiatrist?

..and we discover even the Queen has offshore secrets.

We expect higher standards of the Queen

than investing in tax havens overseas.

STEEL PAN MUSIC PLAYS

It's an island paradise. Sunshine and fun.

Welcome to Bermuda.

This is a beautiful island in the Atlantic,

but it's a lot more than just a few pretty beaches.

This place attracts billions of dollars

from all across the globe,

from the super-rich and big business.

Bermuda is a tax haven.

It offers two things to the rich and powerful -

0% tax rates and secrecy.

These places are selling secrecy,

they're selling facilities for handling dirty money

and, you know, a big part of the game is hiding.

But now that secrecy has been breached.

Appleby is a legal firm that sells offshore services.

7 million of their documents have been leaked.

WHISPERING: So that's the head office.

You have to be very careful at this stage of the investigation...

..because Appleby don't know that we have their data.

We have been working on the documents for the past year.

This March, we were invited to a secret meeting in Munich.

We don't talk about what we're doing. Most of you know this...

The documents were leaked

to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

But we don't talk to our friends, to our families, to our colleagues.

They are sharing the documents

with the International Consortium Of Investigative Journalists.

In the UK, that's Panorama and the Guardian.

The more journalists are looking at the information,

the more stories that emerge.

It's got to be very interesting to the public

because this is a kind of information

that's never come out before.

The leak has been called the Paradise Papers.

Secret contracts, agreements and deals

that we were never supposed to see.

Over the next two nights, Panorama will show you the hidden stories.

The Paradise Papers contain some of the biggest names in Britain.

Some at the very heart of the establishment.

Including one who lives here.

Our very own Queen is investing offshore.

The Queen's investments are handled by the Duchy of Lancaster.

Now, because of the files,

we can see exactly where some of that money was going.

They reveal millions of pounds of secret offshore investments.

It's £10 million in tax havens.

Perfectly legal and no suggestion the Duchy's avoiding tax.

But should the monarch's cash really be offshore -

a place of lax regulation, low tax and secrecy?

If the money has been invested in a tax haven,

I would have thought it would be extremely embarrassing

for the Queen and the Royal family.

We expect higher standards of the Queen,

in terms of where the investments are located.

MUSIC: God Save The Queen

Half of the 10 million was invested in the Cayman Islands,

a tax haven where the Queen is head of state.

Now, we can't see where all the money went,

but the documents show the Duchy invested

in medical and technology companies,

and two British high street retailers.

One was the off-licence chain, Thresher -

it went bust, owing £17 million to the taxman.

The other was a very small amount

in the rent-to-buy retailer, BrightHouse.

Two weeks ago,

it was fined nearly £15 million for irresponsible lending.

She's in.

Now, the Duchy didn't give us a figure for Threshers,

but said its investment in BrightHouse

currently equates to £3,208.

It said...

It's so obvious that if you're looking after

the money of the monarchy,

you've got to be actually cleaner than clean.

And you must never go near the dirty world

of money-laundering, tax avoidance, tax evasion.

There's a lot more about the British establishment

in the Paradise Papers.

I, Michael, Lord Ashcroft, do swear by Almighty God

that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance...

Lord Ashcroft has given more than £10 million

to the Conservative Party.

..so help me God.

And the billionaire was also the party's treasurer

and its deputy chairman.

For the last 20 years,

Lord Ashcroft has been one of the most significant donors

to the Conservative Party.

He's also been very important organisationally.

He's hugely significant.

But our documents reveal the scale of Lord Ashcroft's tax avoidance,

how he ignored financial rules and repeatedly misled the public.

Evidence from the papers could leave him

facing a tax bill of tens of millions.

BBC NEWS THEME PLAYS

Lord Ashcroft's tax status became a political scandal in 2010.

-HUW EDWARDS:

-Lord Ashcroft, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party -

he's confirmed that he doesn't pay tax in the UK

on most of his foreign earnings.

It went on for ten years while he was sitting in the House of Lords.

Our documents show, for the first time,

how much cash Lord Ashcroft was receiving in those years.

Look at the payments!

The money kept coming.

They total around 200 million.

And Lord Ashcroft didn't have to pay a penny in tax.

You can be an offshore financier, you can live a meaningless life

in some ghastly tax haven and have nothing to do with Britain.

But what he appears to be doing is having the best of both worlds,

being an offshore person not paying British tax

and then dabbling, mischievously,

and having great influence in British politics.

All those payments came from something Lord Ashcroft set up

called the Punta Gorda Trust,

which has assets worth almost half a billion.

Trusts have, over time,

become ways for rich people to put their assets inside a legal fortress

and still be able to benefit from them and control them.

The trust was run from Appleby's office here in Bermuda.

Lord Ashcroft could legally avoid tax on payments from the trust

so long as he followed the rules.

And the most important rule is that independent trustees

oversee the trust.

But the documents show the trustees were worried about how

Lord Ashcroft was behaving.

As you go through the e-mails, you do get this rising sense

of frustration that Lord Ashcroft is not playing by the rules.

This one puts it pretty simply.

The trustees even issue a warning for Lord Ashcroft. It says...

That looks like Lord Ashcroft controlling the trust

and expecting the trustees to rubber-stamp his decisions.

The trustees are worried,

the trustees are expressing alarm about that. That's a clear red flag.

On the evidence I've seen, it looks like something that is

abusive behaviour and an abusive structure.

If Lord Ashcroft was making the decisions,

he could face a huge tax bill.

He's risking undoing those avoided taxes

and putting himself on the hook for penalties and back taxes

and what have you by meddling with the trust assets without

having the trustees sign off the way they're supposed to.

I've come to the Conservative Party Conference.

We sent letters to Lord Ashcroft's home and his office,

but they were sent back to us, unread and unopened, as you can see.

But we did get an e-mail from his public relations man.

It's an extraordinary message.

In it, he says, look, Lord Ashcroft has access to this letter,

he could read it at any time,

but he makes it quite clear that this will never happen.

Lord Ashcroft said he wouldn't respond

because of the unfair way Panorama had treated him

in the past. So I tracked him down.

Lord Ashcroft, hi. I'm Richard Bilton. I work for Panorama, sir.

Can I grab a quick word with you?

I've been trying to send you these letters, but you wouldn't take them.

Sir, could I just have a quick word with you?

Did you have tens of millions in an offshore trust that

you secretly controlled, sir?

Did that mean that you could avoid millions in tax through that trust?

Lord Ashcroft, why don't you just talk to me?

It would be great to hear your view.

It was the Punta Gorda Trust, Lord Ashcroft.

-Sir, the Punta Gorda Trust...

-Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear!

Dear, dear, dear - is that your response?

It was the Punta Gorda Trust, sir,

and so you made some decisions and the trustees...

We're up to quite a lot of dears now, sir.

It would be great to know your view. Sir, if you did control that tr...

I'm really keen to get your view, sir.

I'm really keen to get your view. Sir, you can't hold the microphone!

-Just give me your view. This is the way to do it.

-Dear, dear, dear!

Because, do you think, if you did have money in that trust,

you could, sir, face a big tax bill? Sir, we're going for a walk!

We're holding hands! This is lovely! This is what I'd hoped for!

Just the chance to talk to you, sir. Where are we going to end up?

This is great! Sir, why don't you just stop and answer my questions?

It will take one minute, sir.

Did you, sir, have tens of millions in an offshore trust that you

secretly controlled? Yes or no, sir? Is that yes or no, sir?

And therefore,

did you avoid millions by having your money in that trust?

Did you, sir? Because, if you did, you could face a big tax bill.

Sir, where are we going? This is amazing!

We've been walking now for about two minutes.

Why don't you just give me your view?

Sir, why don't you just give me your view? We could have been sponsored!

We've done about a mile and a half!

Sir, why don't you just tell me your view?

It would be really nice to get your view. Sir?

Sir, just give me your view!

Did you, sir, secretly control a trust in which you had

tens of millions, therefore avoiding tax, sir?

Did you do that?

Did you do that, sir? It would be great to know your...

Where are we going? This is brilliant!

I don't know where we're going to end up!

Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear!

I'm not going to follow you in there, sir.

HE LAUGHS

I've never quite had a chat quite like that.

So we just want to have a word with Mr Ashcroft.

He said "Dear, dear, dear" about...I don't know, 200 times.

Lord Ashcroft's lawyers later said that I had started...

Lord Ashcroft...

There's one last Lord Ashcroft revelation.

After the scandal of 2010,

he continued to sit in the House of Lords.

It seemed he'd finally become an ordinary taxpayer for good.

But this document about his tax status reveals he didn't.

It says Lord Ashcroft's true domicile is Belize.

It's legal but, once again, we'd all been misled.

I think it's very important that people who play a role in our

public life are straightforward about their dealings.

I think it's a major political explosion.

It will raise huge questions about not just the Conservatives,

also the House of Lords.

So what about Appleby, the company that oversaw Lord Ashcroft's trust?

They say...

..and would play no role in advising on the tax advantages or

disadvantages of any particular structure.

It isn't just the British establishment.

The Paradise Papers also reveal new details about America's

biggest political scandal.

This president conspired with agents of the Russian government

to steal an election!

You can talk all you want about Russia, which is all fake news.

And I will tell you right now - zero!

I've nothing to do with Russia!

We've discovered that a senior

member of Trump's Cabinet has been quietly trading with the Russians.

You know who that is, right?

He's a billionaire called Wilbur Ross.

They became close after Donald Trump bought

a casino in Atlantic City in the '80s.

Donald Trump gave Michael Jackson a personal tour

of his 1.2 billion extravaganza.

The deal pushed Trump to the brink of bankruptcy.

Wilbur Ross stepped in to save him.

Wilbur Ross was a key negotiator

in Donald Trump not having to

go through bankruptcy and not being swept into the dustbin of history.

If it hadn't been for Wilbur Ross, Donald Trump would not

be in the White House.

-Ah, Wilbur!

-How are you, Mr President?

-Careful.

When he became president,

Trump nominated Ross to be his Commerce Secretary.

But our documents show a different side to Mr Ross.

The man in charge of US trade policy

had dozens of companies in tax havens.

Appleby, it turns out, helped create and manage some 50 companies

and partnerships that were connected to Mr Ross' investment firm.

Wilbur Ross said he'd cut ties with businesses that could

compromise his new role in the US government.

Your service has resulted in your divesting yourself

of literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

You did it to avoid any conflicts of interest, correct?

That is correct, sir.

We don't think that is correct.

We've discovered that he has a stake in a shipping company

called Navigator Holdings.

One of its major clients is Sibur,

a Russian energy company that has close links to the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin's son-in-law is a shareholder.

Another is Gennady Timchenko, one of Putin's oldest friends.

Whenever you see a major energy company in particular that is

controlled by oligarchs, as this one is,

with such close connections to the Russian state,

you have to realise that you're doing business not just with

a private company but, in some sense,

you're doing business with the government of Russia.

In 2014, Mr Timchenko was sanctioned by the US government who said his...

But Mr Ross kept his business ties with Mr Timchenko's company.

If I were in the business

of consulting, which I am not,

I would advise any client who came to me to stay well away from Sibur,

and you don't want to get known as somebody who plays footsie or

walks right up to the line with sanctioned individuals.

If you know anything about the Russians, it's that,

under the current system, it's easy to get dirty. Don't go there, man.

Don't go there.

Thank you. Great job. Thank you, everybody.

Mr Ross says he never owned a majority of Navigator shares

and has never met Gennady Timchenko or Putin's son-in-law.

He points out...

And he says he's taken steps...

When you're in a position to profit, even indirectly in this case,

from a very well-connected Russian firm,

and you, as the investor, are in charge of US trade policy

and have a voice in sanctions, anybody

looking at that might imagine there's a potential conflict there.

LIFT BELL PINGS

Coming under pressure from Gueye. And it's Wayne Rooney. Great finish!

-And 15 years...

-Everton-Arsenal from a couple of weeks ago.

Xhaka with the hit. Oh, what a follow-up!

A thrilling advert for British football.

But what we've found in the Paradise Papers raises serious

questions about our national game.

What if one man

and his money were secretly linked to both of these clubs?

BOOING

This is Alisher Usmanov,

another billionaire who's close to Vladimir Putin.

He's one of Britain's richest men...

..and owns one of London's most expensive houses

and 30% of Arsenal, one of Britain's most valuable clubs.

We begin a new era for Arsenal where we win trophies.

This is most important for football, winning trophies.

But we think some of his money may have also ended up in Everton.

Half-time, and it's 1-1,

and both sets of fans are desperate for their team to win.

The story centres on this man and begins a decade ago.

Farhad Moshiri used to work for Mr Usmanov as an accountant.

Now he's a tycoon who's just bought Everton.

So where did his wealth come from?

Well, the story starts with Mr Usmanov

and Mr Moshiri buying a joint stake in Arsenal back in 2007.

But the documents suggest Mr Usmanov paid for the whole stake.

This one shows his company, Epion Holdings, providing the funds.

Mr Moshiri's lawyers eventually admitted that was true,

but say he put his own money into Arsenal later.

The documents go further.

They record a gift from Alisher Usmanov to

Farhad Moshiri for the Arsenal deal.

That matters because, nearly a decade later, Mr Moshiri

sold his interest in Arsenal to raise capital to purchase Everton.

It looks like that capital originally came from Mr Usmanov.

Right, so, this document shows Mr Moshiri...

-We showed our evidence to the former head of the FA.

-Right.

"Who will then gift the moneys to Moshiri,

-"who will in turn invest in the company."

-Yeah.

It'll be interesting to see

whether that breaks the Premier League rules.

My instinct is that, if the Premier League knew this,

they either have done or they would do their own investigation.

They'd have to be convinced that this was an above-the-board

transaction, and it wasn't all Mr Usmanov's money.

There needs to be some questions asked.

I suspect, as a result of this, the Premier League will want to look

at the whole relationship between the two men and the two clubs.

-Kolasinac.

-At the Everton-Arsenal game, the great goals keep coming.

Sanchez going all the way!

And Everton are being taught a footballing lesson here by Arsenal,

whose strike ethic...

But what is going on off the pitch?

Mr Moshiri's lawyers insist

he's independently wealthy,

but he hadn't answered our questions about

whether his source of wealth was a gift from Mr Usmanov.

Mr Moshiri?

Is Mr Usmanov the real owner of Everton, sir? I'm from the BBC.

-Are you crazy?

-No, sir, cos your cash...

-Have you seen a psychiatrist?

-I haven't, sir.

But your cash, it came from Mr Usmanov, didn't it?

-It was a gift, initially.

-Who?

-Mr Usmanov gave you the cash as a gift.

No, it wasn't a gift. Where did you get this idea?

-Is that true or not, sir?

-It's untrue.

-It's untrue?

It's not a gift.

But say it came as a gift, say Mr Usmanov gifted you the money,

which you invested in Arsenal, you then sell your shares in Arsenal...

-Look, your word is wrong. A gift makes it yours, right?

-Right.

You're saying that did he loan 100 million to you, right?

Right, he's never lended me anything. It's you, sir...

-So if it is a loan, you owe the money back to him.

-Right.

-If it's a gift, it's yours.

-Which was it, then, sir?

-Neither of them because I paid for it.

-Right.

So if it's a gift, it's a gift, right?

If I give you a fiver, whose fiver is it?

If I give my friend here a fiver, it's his, right?

But would you be happy that, if the Premier League were able

to see the way the money went through...

-They have all the information.

-They have that information?

Instead of asking me, go and ask them.

-They have every piece of information.

-Thank you, sir.

His club, Everton,

say details of Mr Moshiri's purchase were approved by the Premier League.

But we don't think they've seen

our documents about where the money came from in the first place.

Mr Moshiri's lawyers later strongly denied he'd received

a gift from Mr Usmanov, who also denies giving it.

Mr Moshiri says all the documents that mention a gift are a mistake.

But this document describes how Mr Usmanov will gift money to him.

And these public documents seem to show it happening -

54 million Cypriot pounds, that's 63 million in sterling,

went from Mr Usmanov to Mr Moshiri's company in March 2008.

Mr Moshiri claims it had nothing to do with the Arsenal deal and was

part of an employee incentive scheme, a loan he'd later paid back.

There's more in the papers that suggests Mr Usmanov could be

involved with Everton.

This is the Isle of Man, home to the financial company

that administered the Everton deal, Bridgewaters.

Now, one of their responsibilities is to carry out checks,

due diligence, on clients and their companies.

But one document from 2011 says Bridgewaters is actually

owned by Mr Usmanov.

Here's an e-mail about Mr Usmanov, and it says the client,

Mr Usmanov...

If this is true, if Usmanov actually owns the company,

then it's an outrageous conflict of interest.

It's like owning the police that is supposed to police you.

Both Bridgwaters and Mr Usmanov strongly deny it's secretly

controlled by the billionaire.

Mr Usmanov's lawyers say...

But the more we looked for connections between Mr Usmanov

and Everton, the more we found.

The company that owns Everton Football Club, Blue Heaven Holdings,

was set up by Bridgewaters and its registered agent, Bridgewaters too.

And one of its directors is an employee of...

..you guessed it, Bridgewaters.

And the other director...well, he works for Mr Usmanov.

Tomorrow night, more revelations from the Paradise Papers.

-The island that changed the law to help tax dodgers.

-No comment.

What do you say to our viewers who pay their tax?

The millionaires who can live the high life

because they don't pay tax.

Why don't you just tell us your side of the story? Why did you do that?

-Were you dodging tax, sir?

-Away!

And the TV stars on the tax fiddle.

Can you tell me about your tax dodge?

You get paid in Mauritius, don't you? What's all that about?