Out of the Box and Into the Shadows: The Pandora Papers

The Pandora Papers is the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist's largest investigation into off-shore finance to date.  Almost 3 terabytes of data piece together a shadow world of offshore financial.  World leaders  and at least 130 billionaires rely on an offshore financial system that keeps taxes low, money opaque and above all guards the privacy of its clients.  Beyond the shocking inequalities from the world's billionaires harbouring their wealth in tax-havens, what role does the offshore finance system have in facilitating shady business?  From real estate, to art trading all the way to illicit trade at sea, the world of off shore finance is mysterious to many, but day to day business for a global super elite.  In this episode of GDP, we chat with Delphine Reuter from the ICIJ, to help piece together the bigger meaning of the Pandora Papers.   Delphine Reuter, Belgium, is ICIJ’s data journalist and researcher. She started collaborating with ICIJ on the LuxLeaks project in 2014. Prior to joining ICIJ's Data & Research Unit full time, she described her position as "brain for hire." She's no data witch, but somehow working for ICIJ has sparked a love for spreadsheets, everything that requires research, and cross-border investigations. Previously she was a freelancer working on investigative cross-border projects. She has also been a researcher for environmental organizations. More recently, she was a coordinator of journalism training for professionals and a teacher at IHECS, a journalism school in Brussels. She holds a degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism (NY) and IHECS. Check out the ICIJ here. Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter