Offshore bank list includes several FIFA officials. Offshore companies also linked to family of China President Xi Jinping-USA Today

4/5/16, "Chinese censors curb Panama Papers coverage," USA Today, Roger Yu

"Others mentioned in the Panama Papers include associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin, several FIFA officials, actor Jackie Chan, and at least 33 people and companies blacklisted by the U.S. government because of links to wrongdoing....

A group of more than 100 news organizations around the world – coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – published stories Sunday about the inner workings of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which helps politicians, businessmen, athletes and celebrities create offshore accounts for untraceable funds.

The political fallout from the consortium’s investigative stories, based on 11.5 million documents that were leaked anonymously, continued this week as Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned Tuesday amid pressure.

Several prominent Chinese names also appear in the documents, according to the ICIJ's report.

"The files reveal offshore companies linked to the family of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping," the report said. "Family members of at least eight current or former members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s main ruling body, have offshore companies arranged though Mossack Fonseca. They include President Xi’s brother-in-law, who set up two British Virgin Islands companies in 2009."

The revelation will not be easy to find online for Chinese readers, as censors prevented the country’s top news outlets from reporting the topic. Internet censors also blocked the stories by the ICIJ's and several of its publishing partners, including Spain’s El País, France's Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., and the U.K. and U.S. editions of The Guardian, according to ICIJ, citing reports from news organizations and analytics by GreatFire.org, which monitors web censorship in China.

The People's Daily, an official daily newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, and state broadcaster China Central Television also have not reported on the affair, according to The Wall Street Journal. A search for “Panama” on the website of the China Daily, an English daily in China, renders one wire story — written by Agence France-Presse — related to the investigation. Five stories related to the Panama Papers appeared on Xinhua’s English website, but they referred to the scandals abroad in Iceland, Spain and New Zealand....

China moved swiftly in reacting to reports and online chats about the Panama Papers leak, largely banning the topic and other related search terms at news organizations and social media channels in the country."...

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"Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission at the 18th Party Congress in 2012, replacing Hu Jintao as the top leader of the Communist Party. Xi was elected President in March 2013. Born in 1953, Xi is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a veteran leader of the Party. He graduated from Tsinghua University in 1979 with a degree in engineering." South China Morning Post 




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