What are the ‘Pandora Papers,’ the financial leak making headlines?

The Pandora Papers, made up of leaked financial documents, are identifying some of the richest and most powerful people in the world and how they move their money.

The Pandora Papers are the latest development in a series of investigations into how the world’s most powerful and wealthiest individuals use offshore accounts.

The papers, which are being reported by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), made international headlines Monday for its revelations — and it continues to, as global powers have started to deny any wrongdoing.

According to its website, the ICIJ spent more than a year combing through 11.9 million records, which make up the reporting. The project is similar to the group’s Panama Papers and Paradise Papers investigations.

So what are the Pandora Papers, and why are they making headlines?

The ICIJ brought together more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries to work on the project. The consortium examined 2.94 terabytes of data, leaked to them in various forms like emails and spreadsheets, the group said on its website.

In all, more than 330 politicians, 130 billionaires, celebrities, fraudsters and drug dealers were identified as having used offshore accounts in secret jurisdictions.

The investigation also shows how banks and law firms deal with offshore providers to create complex structures, and how American trust providers took advantage of some states’ laws that encourage secrecy to help wealthy overseas clients hide money to avoid taxes in their home countries.

“The new data leak must be a wake-up call,” said Sven Giegold, a Green party lawmaker in the European Parliament, in an Associated Press story. “Global tax evasion fuels global inequality. We need to expand and sharpen the countermeasures now.”