Leaked records uncover the secretive companies and bank accounts of some of West Africa’s most powerful politicians and corporate moguls, including a Mali presidential candidate, the mayor of Cote d’Ivoire’s richest city and a member of the Togolese ruling dynasty inner circle

Files also reveal details behind a Seychelles company of a longtime friend of Nobel Prize-winning Liberian ex-president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who helped lobby on behalf of a mining company

Honorary consuls, including several representing European countries, used offshore companies and accounts to avoid taxes and keep money out of sight from authorities in West Africa