When the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists launched the Offshore Leaks Database in 2013, it received 2 million page views in the first 24 hours and crashed — an unmistakable sign of the public’s demand for information about the secret system known as offshore finance.
Nearly a decade and millions of leaked documents later, the database has quietly become one of the most valuable resources on the offshore financial system. Every month, regulators, academics, reporters and the public rack up 300,000 pageviews tracking the hidden wealth of drug dealers, human traffickers and corrupt oligarchs — not to mention the diverted profits of brand name multinationals.
Now, the Offshore Leaks Database has become the focal point of renewed interest with a bump in traffic as governments scramble to track down and seize the offshore assets of Russian oligarchs and the enablers of President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine who have snuck stolen wealth into the luxury of the West.
Keywords: fraud detection • icij • international consortium of investigative journalists • Pandora Papers