Sri Lanka’s public security minister, Tiran Alles, is the first sitting Sri Lankan minister to be identified in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Pandora Papers data trove as having offshore holdings.
An ICIJ analysis of the leaked records and U.K.’s public property register shows that Alles, a media tycoon and politician, owns two British Virgin Islands companies that hold properties in London.
The Pandora Papers is a trove of 11.9 million leaked documents obtained by ICIJ that were at the core of a 2021 global investigation exposing the financial deals and hidden assets of politicians, celebrities, business people and criminals in more than 200 countries. The files came from 14 offshore service providers that specialized in setting up shell companies and trusts in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions.
ICIJ’s analysis shows that Alles’ Brompton Properties Ltd. owns a flat in an affluent area of London that was purchased for about $960,000 in 2006.
His second BVI company, Banham Ventures Ltd., has owned a separate property near the city’s posh Chelsea neighborhood since 2008. U.K. records don’t list the purchase price.
The funds used to finance the BVI companies came from Alles’ work as a businessman, according to a declaration in the leaked files.
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