What the Pandora Papers Reveal

How does the world of secret finance enable some of the globe’s richest and most powerful people to shield their deals and assets?

In October 2021, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists — with 150 partner news organizations around the world, including FRONTLINE — began publishing the results of an investigation based on a massive leak of confidential documents. The leaked files, known as the Pandora Papers, exposed a secretive financial system that enables the world’s wealthy and powerful to hide their money and assets from creditors, taxing authorities and governments. The revelations have reverberated across the globe.

In this episode of The FRONTLINE Dispatch podcast, FRONTLINE producer Evan Williams and ICIJ reporter Will Fitzgibbon, both featured in the November 2021 short documentary Pandora Papers, from ICIJ and FRONTLINE, join FRONTLINE executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath to discuss some of the investigation’s key findings, the ongoing impacts and the importance of global reporting collaborations.

“The basic principle of ICIJ really is one of journalistic equality, I think. Recognizing that the smartest reporter in New York City or Washington, D.C., is never going to have the experience or the ability to find a story in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in the Philippines, right?” Fitzgibbon says. “And that’s why we provide access to the data and bring on reporters from more than 100 countries. Because we know that, hidden in these documents, are only stories the reporters from those countries can tell.”

The Pandora Papers documentary is now streaming on FRONTLINE’s website, the PBS Video app and FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.

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