
Paradise Papers: A Special Investigation – Paradise-Papers – The Guardian - yread
https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/paradise-papers
======
clydethefrog
Relevant for HN audience:

"Leaked files show that a state-controlled bank in Moscow helped to fuel Yuri
Milner’s ascent in Silicon Valley, where the Russia investigation has put tech
companies under scrutiny"

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-
faceboo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-
twitter-russia.html)

~~~
cyphunk
could someone explain, is the reveal here only that a state bank chose to
invest its capital in american companies? should a bank not do that? I mean,
Putin can lick my tiny gonads but I also think Al Franken and much of the
media are channelling the dead corpse of McCarthy when they assume everyone
should be suspicious of anything russian, so I'm generally suspicious of much
of russia-bate being thrown out there. To me, when I read this article, I see
greedy capitalists finding a profitable place to invest there capital, not
much more.

~~~
ellius
People are definitely overreacting, but other people are underreacting. The
Russian state-run banks are effectively Putin’s tools. So the question really
becomes why did the Russian government choose to secretly move hundreds of
millions of dollars into American tech companies.

To my mind, there are two plausible answers. The first is that it was a way to
offshore a bunch of wealth into what looked like a good investment. You can
get into moral issues (e.g. is Russian oligarch money “dirty”), but I think
it’s not very interesting or concerning from a national security perspective.

An alternative is that Putin perceives many of these technology companies as
crucial pieces in the power game, and wanted some level of access to /
influence over them. That would be a much more concerning situation, because
it means that they may have leveraged their ownership stake against American
national interests. We don’t yet have evidence of that, but we should
investigate the possibility.

~~~
freeflight
> The Russian state-run banks are effectively Putin’s tools.

Just like anything Russian is "Putin's tool"? Please, at this point it feels
like Putin is not just another human but rather some TVtrope bad guy living in
a secret bunker under a volcano, scheming how to single-handedly destroy the
world because that's what bad guys do.

It's weird how this is labeled across different publications, the business
insider article states "Commercial interests and state interest 'go hand in
hand' for Russia" like that's a bad thing and Russia is the only country
acting like that.

In the end, money got invested in a sector that was deemed very profitable at
that time, I have no doubts US institutional investors, and private
billionaires, have done the same. Yet nobody questions their influence on
Twitter/Facebook, it's only an issue when Russians do it?

Because if "investing for influence" is really the new breaking point, then I
think there'd be a ton of more interesting "investments", by US politicians,
to "defense contractors" and similar questionable companies.

~~~
ellius
That’s just whataboutism. If Russia found that the CIA had invested hundreds
of millions of dollars into one of their energy companies, I’d fully expect
them to investigate the national security risks. I never argued that it was
somehow a unique behavior to Russia, you incorrectly inferred that. The U.S.
obviously tries to project influence through corporate “partnerships” as well,
e.g. the NSA with AT&T.

And I stand by the Putin comment. He isn’t a supervillain, but the power of
the Russian state is far more concentrated in his hands than the power of the
US is with any individual.

~~~
freeflight
It's not whataboutism to point out that simply investing in stocks is hardly a
"smoking gun" in regards to the investor having had actual influence over the
company he/she invested in.

I'm merely pointing out that if that's the new "breaking point" for collusion
then there are literally tons of other cases with much worse implications that
should be properly scrutinized.

Is there any actual evidence these investments have been used to influence
Twitter/Facebook? Afaik no, there isn't, so all this actually amounts to is
"Russians invested in social media stocks", which is hardly scandalous nor
should it be breaking news.

Because that's what it actually comes down to: Twitter and Facebook couldn't
care less how much Russian state power is concentrated, compared to the US,
even if that's actually true, it has literally zero relevance in this case.

~~~
ellius
I didn’t say anything about “collusion.” I said that it’s a worthwhile avenue
for a national security investigation, to figure out exactly what you just
asked (is there any evidence these investments were misused) and why it was
done secretly. You’re acting like I said this is a smoking gun, when all I
said is that it’s worth looking into. And while your whole comment wasn’t
whataboutism, the “other countries do this too” part definitely was. Your
scenario is certainly a possibility—maybe it was just a straightforward
investment—but you don’t know that and shouldn’t assume it’s true.

~~~
freeflight
> You’re acting like I said this is a smoking gun, when all I said is that
> it’s worth looking into.

Sorry about that, you are right in that you didn't say this is a smoking gun.
But that's what this is framed as in many places and I took your framing of
"Putin's tool" as going down that same venue.

> And while your whole comment wasn’t whataboutism, the “other countries do
> this too” part definitely was.

I see it as pointing out double-standards, which is an actual thing and sadly
happens quite often without being called out as such. Especially in
geopolitics, there's a very easy to spot bias in terms of what some countries
are allowed to do while other countries are scrutinized for these very same
actions.

Case in point: US modernizing/expanding their nuclear arsenal vs Russia doing
the same and how both of those are framed across different media on the globe.
When the US modernized their nuclear arsenal station in Germany, the German
government literally framed that as "Good US nukes vs evil Russian nukes",
like there's any actual difference.

The same can be applied here where it's suddenly super dodgy that actors
invested in social media. Why? Because these actors happened to be Russian.
Now let's investigate those Russians, but only those Russians!

You can't deny that this evokes certain memories about the McCarthy era and
the associated Red Scare. Again: If investing in social media is a dodgy
proposition then this should apply to everybody investing, not just Russians
because last time I checked it wasn't just some Russian people who had beef
with the US, that particular trait is not reserved to some Russian nationals,
it's far more widespread than that.

~~~
ellius
I agree with all of what you said, but I’ll just point out that I opened by
saying that many people are definitely overreacting. Those are all reasonable
points in general, though, and I don’t think they’re incongruous with what I’m
saying.

------
brd
1.4 TB of data. This is going to be a fun leak to watch unravel, especially in
context of the all the political activity around Russian corruption.

~~~
muxator
Is there a mirror? An ipfs link?

~~~
phy6
I came here looking for one too. All they offer is the CSV that powers a Neo4J
graph, not a link to the 1.4TB of files (which is what I want to ingest)

~~~
myaccountzz
>On November 5, 2017, ICIJ added data from some politicians featured in the
Paradise Papers investigation. ICIJ will be releasing the full structured data
connected to this investigation in the coming weeks.

------
yread
Director of ICIJ said it's about 1/5th of offshore investments!

------
rodgerd
Gee, I wonder why this hasn't popped up through WikiLeaks.

------
smhg
When I click the News tab on Google's results for Paradise Papers I mainly get
coverage from British and Australian sources. I have a hard time finding any
in the US.

Is this a Google filter (I'm in Europe)? Or related to the affiliations of the
investigators? Or a time zone thing?

~~~
dazc
Could be a time zone thing or recent change where google return results based
on your current location?

[https://www.blog.google/products/search/making-search-
result...](https://www.blog.google/products/search/making-search-results-more-
local-and-relevant/)

If you want results from US you can go to the google homepage > settings >
search settings > region settings

~~~
smhg
It's indeed on 'Current region' and apparently that includes Australia and UK,
but not US. Strange.

As I'm writing this I've only found a mention on the nytimes homepage (rather
small). In Europe it seems to be the main (breaking) news on most sites.

------
ianai
As much as I want this to lead to public change, I don’t think it will. The
economy seems to be strong enough for people to overlook the outsized shares
of others.

I’m more shocked by the lack of outrage over the unfolding Trump-circle ties
to Russia. People claim to be patriotic but welcoming to the Cold War’s
nemesis.

~~~
r3bl
You should read it more thoroughly then, because Trump-Russia connection just
might be explained by this leak.

