‘Pandoras Papers’: The King of Jordan Spent Over $100 Million to...

The King of Jordan has spent more than 70 million pounds (more than $100 million) to build a real estate empire in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Leaked financial documents show that a network of secretly owned companies has been used by King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein to purchase 15 properties since taking power in 1999.

The list includes three oceanfront homes in Malibu, California, worth 50 million pounds, and properties in London and Ascot in the United Kingdom.

King Abdullah’s lawyers said he bought the properties with his own money, and there is nothing wrong with using companies based in tax havens to buy these properties.

Jordan receives significant international aid, with the United States and the United Kingdom leading donors. The British government is considered one of the biggest financial supporters of the government in Jordan, as Britain has doubled the amounts it provides to Jordan, to reach 650 million pounds over a five-year period since 2019.

King Abdullah is seen as a moderate ally of Western countries in the Middle East.

But he accumulated a real estate fortune between 2003 and 2017, even though he was accused of presiding over an authoritarian regime in a country that has seen protests erupt in recent years. Imposing austerity measures and tax increases.

In June 2020, the Jordanian authorities launched a campaign targeting money that Jordanian citizens transfer abroad.

One dissident was quoted as saying that King Abdullah appears to be ruling Jordan by “remote control”, and a former government employee told Panorama that he spends four to six months a year outside the country.

Who is the king ofaردن?

• Born on January 30, 1962. He is the eldest son of King Hussein from his British-born wife, Princess Muna Al Hussein (Tony Gardiner).

He studied in the United Kingdom and the United States, and joined the British Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

• Served in the British Army and the Royal Jordanian Army

• He married Queen Rania in 1993

• He ascended the throne on the death of his father, King Hussein bin Talal, in February 1999

• Supporting Western military efforts in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks

• Promote economic and social modernization in Jordan

• He faced criticism regarding dealing with the economy file, as austerity measures and tax increases sparked protests in 2018.

The information regarding King Abdullah’s real estate wealth came in the newly obtained financial documents, which are called “Pandoras Documents”.

These documents detail how companies that provide secret financial services operate, and the secret fortunes of some of the most powerful and powerful people on the planet.

The BBC’s Panorama program, the Guardian newspaper in the UK, and BBC Arabic, in cooperation with other media organizations, managed to access more than 12 million files from 14 companies in the British Virgin Islands, Belize, Panama, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Switzerland and other countries.

Between 2012 and 2014, King Abdullah bought four apartments in the upscale Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC.

The $16 million purchase of these apartments may have something to do with the king’s son, Crown Prince Hussein, who was studying at Georgetown University at the time.

The seven-bedroom home is located in an area of ​​multi-million dollar properties overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the Point Dome Peninsula in Malibu, California.

Sir Anthony Hopkins, Julia Roberts, Simon Cole, Gwyneth Paltrow and Barbra Streisand lived in the area.

The property was purchased for $33.5 million in 2014 by Nabisco Holdings SA, a company based in the British Virgin Islands. The purchase amount was a record in the region at the time.

The two houses on either side of the property were bought by two different companies also based in the British Isles in 2015 and 2017, and the three properties are undergoing alterations to make them one mega-property.

The “Pandora Documents” reveal that the three firms are among the firms represented by a Panama law firm, all of which are secretly owned by the King of Jordan.

An anonymous blogger writing about celebrity home sales in California at the time said: “Someone has gone through a hell of a lot of trouble keeping secret what they’ve done here. Rich people generally don’t like to be identified. But this level of deliberate obfuscation goes beyond practically anything we’ve ever seen. “.

The King of Jordan was able to keep his real estate ownership secret, because he used companies based in tax havens to make purchases.

The people who set up the companies for the king were careful not to identify the owner, and referred to him in one internal document as “You know who”.

International efforts to improve financial transparency may face some difficulties, according to some estimates.

The BVI passed a law in 2017, requiring the owners of all businesses on the island to register in an internal registry maintained by the government.

But one document shows that eight months after the Beneficial Owner Safe Search System Act came into effect, a number of BVI companies linked to King Abdullah bin Al Hussein have not submitted the requested information to the authorities.

Nor does the king appear to have been listed as a politically exposed person, as someone who holds a prominent public position, a requirement for financial firms under anti-corruption rules.

And Anil Schlein, a Middle East analyst, points out that these leaks could have an impact in Jordan.

“It is very, very difficult for the average Jordanian to get the minimum amount of housing, a family and a good job,” she told Panorama. She added, “Confronting the Jordanians with the news that the king has transferred money abroad all this time will look really bad.”

King Abdullah’s lawyers said the information about his property is not accurate or current. They said that all of his property abroad was purchased with his personal wealth, which he also uses to finance projects that benefit Jordanian citizens.

They added that corporations based in tax havens were not used to conceal the king’s wealth, and that it was common for VIPs and large corporations to own and hold assets through such corporations for reasons of privacy and security.

They said that the management of these companies “is conducted by specialists to ensure the smooth running of day-to-day operations, and compliance with all legal and financial obligations of the region under whose jurisdiction these companies are”.

The Jordanian monarch does not secretly own real estate only in Malibu, as the “Pandora Documents” indicate that he has eight properties in London and the southeast of England.

These properties include homes in some of the capital’s most luxurious streets, including in Kensington and Belgravia, as well as in Ascot in Surrey County, and he owns four apartments in Washington, DC.