Promo - Inside the tax havens of the rich and powerful

Promo - Inside the tax havens of the rich and powerful

U2 rocker Bono put his money in Lithuanian shopping centre and Madonna invested in a medical supply company, according to leaked documents that show how the one per cent stay among the world’s wealthiest.

The Sunday Bloody Sunday singer, whose real name is Paul Hewson, was an investor in Nude Estates, a Maltese company that bought the mall in Utena, a small town almost 100km from the country’s capital Vilnius in 2007, according to records dubbed the “Paradise Papers”. The documents were released yesterday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Bono’s spokeswoman told the Guardian that he was a “passive, minority investor” and that Nude Estates was “legally registered” in Malta, a well-known tax haven for the rich.

Along with Madonna’s interest in a medical supply company, the papers show how the world’s rich, famous and politically ​powerful​ used offshore financial systems to hide their investments​ or cash. ​

​Others exposed in the Paradise Papers include ​President Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ connection to a shipping company partly owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, the Queen of England investing millions of dollars in a Cayman Islands fund.

The documents also revealed how Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quietly moved millions to a Cayman trust.

This story originally appeared in the New York Post and is republished here with permission.