More than 50 Irish addresses are believed to be linked to account holders in offshore secrecy jurisdictions, according to an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Initial inquiries indicate between 50 and 60 addresses in Ireland feature in documents which include the identities of thousands of wealthy account holders around the world.

All the addresses may not be directly linked to Irish individuals or businesses and could be registered to financial intermediaries, including directors, shareholders, secretaries and nominees holding addresses within the State.

The investigation has uncovered that government officials, their families and associates in Azerbaijan, Russia, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Canada, Mongolia and other countries have used a network of covert companies and bank accounts.

Complex offshore structures have been used to own mansions, yachts and other assets while giving account holders the benefits of anonymity and tax advantages.

McKinsey & Company former chief economist James S Henry estimated in a study that wealthy individuals have $21 to $32 trillion (€16 to €25 trillion) hidden in offshore havens, close to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined.

A number of high-profile account holders named as part of the investigation include a former Mongolian finance minister, the husband of a Canadian liberal senator and a number of prominent Thais, including the former wife of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Quinn links

An early release of some of findings of the investigation by the Guardian last November traced British Virgin Island entities used in Russia by bankrupt property developer Seán Quinn.

Mr Quinn is linked to a number of properties in Russia and Ukraine.

The International Bank Resolution Company is currently seeking to recover as much as $500 million (€385) million in assets from Mr Quinn’s investments in both countries.



Hard drive

The documents analysed in the investigation were passed to ICIJ director Gerard Ryle on a hard drive containing more than 260 gigabytes of data with over two million emails.

The files contained the names of more than 122,000 companies, with almost 12,000 intermediaries, and were analysed using free text retrieval software.

Mr Ryle said, “This investigation lifts the curtain on the offshore system and provides a transparent look into the secret world of tax havens and the individuals and companies that use and benefit from them. We already knew how secret and inaccessible the offshore industry is, but we were surprised by how vast and far reaching it is. It draws its clients not only from the world’s super-wealthy, but also from everyday professionals from all around the world.”

The ICIJ along with dozens of journalists from a network of international media outlets, including the Guardian , BBC and the Washington Post , worked on analysing the files for 15 months.

Some of the findings include evidence that Denise Rich, the former wife of oil trader Marc Rich, had $144 million in a trust named The Dry Trust in the Cook Islands in April 2006.

A congressional investigation found Ms Rich helped raise millions of dollars for Democratic politicians and helped promote her ex-husband’s pardon over racketeering charges by then US president Clinton as he left office in 2001. (Additional reporting: The Guardian)