{"id":33685,"date":"2021-10-11T20:04:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T20:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/?p=33685"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:09:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:09:32","slug":"while-foreign-aid-poured-in-jordans-king-abdullah-funnelled-100m-through-secret-companies-to-buy-luxury-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ostro.si\/en\/stories\/pandora-papers\/while-foreign-aid-poured-in-jordans-king-abdullah-funnelled-100m-through-secret-companies-to-buy-luxury-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"While foreign aid poured in, Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah funnelled $100m through secret companies to buy luxury homes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Jordanian protesters took to the streets \u2013 again \u2013 demanding an end to corruption and poverty in the aid-dependent Middle Eastern monarchy. Masked police broke up the demonstrations and jailed critics of the country\u2019s leaders. <\/p>\n

Still, the people chanted for change.<\/p>\n

Finally, in a bid to defuse the crisis, Jordanian authorities in June 2020 trumpeted a crackdown on hidden wealth, designed to help stanch the flow of an estimated $800 million a year out of the country.<\/p>\n

Then-Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz said the crackdown was especially needed to respond to COVID-19\u2019s impact on the state\u2019s finances. Jordan would track every last dinar that citizens had hidden in tax havens, the prime minister said; No offshore wealth was beyond scrutiny. <\/p>\n

None, it seems, except the king\u2019s.<\/p>\n

A trove of leaked documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows that the country\u2019s long-ruling monarch, King Abdullah II, has secretly owned 14 luxury homes in the United Kingdom and the United States, purchased between 2003 and 2017 through front companies registered in tax havens. Their value totals more than $106 million. <\/p>\n

The homes include a house in Ascot, one of England\u2019s most expensive towns; multimillion-dollar apartments in central London and three luxury apartments in a complex in Washington, D.C., with panoramic views of the Potomac River.<\/p>\n

Also included are three adjoining beachfront homes under reconstruction at Point Dume, a posh enclave near Los Angeles. One, a seven-bedroom mansion on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was bought in 2014 through one of the king\u2019s shell companies, Nabisco Holdings (no connection to the cookie company), for $33.5 million. <\/p>\n

Advisers to the 59-year-old monarch, who awards an annual prize for transparency in his name, spared no effort to conceal his real estate holdings, the records show. Accountants and lawyers in Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands formed shell companies on the king\u2019s behalf and concocted plans to shield his name from public and even confidential government registries. <\/p>\n

On two documents, BVI corporate administrators at the firm Alem\u00e1n, Cordero, Galindo & Lee, better known as Alcogal, checked boxes to declare that no one connected to one of the king\u2019s companies was involved in politics \u2013 even though the king has the power to appoint governments, dissolve Parliament and approve legislation.<\/p>\n

Writing to ICIJ on the king\u2019s behalf, attorneys denied anything improper about owning homes through offshore companies. The king is not required to pay taxes under Jordanian law, the attorneys said. <\/p>\n

Experts familiar with the region say the timing of the purchases, if made public, would likely have alienated many Jordanians and the tribal leaders who help keep Abdullah in power. Most of the U.S. and U.K. real estate deals \u2013 and six of those for more than $5 million \u2013 took place since 2011, after Arab Spring protests that toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and posed the first serious threat to the Jordanian monarchy in generations. <\/p>\n

Jordan is one of the poorest countries in the region. It has almost no oil of its own and precious little water. The kingdom depends on foreign aid to support its own people and to house and care for millions of refugees. Last year alone, the United States gave Jordan more than $1.5 billion in aid and military funding, and the European Union agreed to provide the kingdom with more than $218 million to soften the blow of the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n

\u201cJordan doesn\u2019t have the kind of money that other Middle Eastern monarchies, like Saudi Arabia, have to allow a king to flaunt his wealth,\u201d Dr. Annelle Sheline, an expert on religious and political authority in the Middle East, said in an interview with ICIJ. Sheline, a research fellow with the Quincy Institute in Washington, D.C., added, \u201cIf the Jordanian monarch were to display his wealth more publicly, it wouldn\u2019t only antagonize his people, it would piss off Western donors who have given him money.\u201d <\/p>\n

Experts say Abdullah, whose subjects mock the way he speaks Arabic with an English accent, has little room for error.<\/p>\n

This year, Jordanian police detained 16 people, including a member of the royal family, over an alleged plot to oust Abdullah. Prince Hamzah, the king\u2019s younger half brother, was temporarily placed under house arrest for his alleged role in the coup attempt. In a furtive video issued after a visit from the country\u2019s intelligence services, Hamzah denied being part of any conspiracy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am not the person responsible for the breakdown in governance, for the corruption and for the incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse by the year,\u201d Prince Hamzah said. \u201cA ruling system has decided that its personal interests, that its financial interests, that its corruption is more important than the lives and dignity and futures of the 10 million people that live here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jordanian officials accused Hamzah of a conspiracy that threatened national security. Hamzah did not accuse Abdullah of wrongdoing. <\/p>\n

U.K. attorneys for the king said Abdullah has crucial legitimate security and privacy reasons for holding property in offshore corporations that have nothing to do with tax evasion or any other improper purpose. The king has never misused public monies or foreign aid, the attorneys wrote, adding Abdullah\u2019s wealth comes from personal sources. Abdullah cares deeply for Jordan and its people and acts with integrity and in the best interests of his country and its citizens at all times, the attorneys said. <\/p>\n

The attorneys said that most of the offshore companies either no longer exist or are not related to the king and that some of the properties identified by ICIJ as belonging to him did not. Attorneys declined to explain what the king considers inaccurate due to alleged privacy and security concerns for him and his family. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\"A
A pedestrian walks past a building where a property belonging to King Abdullah II is located in Georgetown in Washington, D.C.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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All the king\u2019s (offshore) men<\/h3>\n

Abdullah has long cultivated an image as a moderate and modernizing figure. A motorbike-riding, peace-prize-winning sovereign, Abdullah was educated at the United Kingdom\u2019s Royal Military Academy and the University of Oxford, among other institutions. He assumed the crown in 1999 upon the death of his father, Hussein. The king and his Kuwaiti-born Palestinian wife, Rania, are often described as the Middle East\u2019s most \u201cmodern\u201d ruling pair; they met at a dinner party in Amman, Jordan\u2019s capital city, when the future queen and Instagram influencer was working for Apple. <\/p>\n

Bordered by war-torn Syria and Iraq to the north and east and the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west, Abdullah\u2019s Jordan is viewed \u2013 at least from the outside \u2013 as an island of relative stability. The country of 10 million people is an important U.S. ally and hosted allied military bases during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Jordan receives billions of dollars each year in aid from the U.S., the European Union, and other nations, much of it destined for the millions of Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Jordanian camps. <\/p>\n

Pro-democracy demonstrations in Jordan have tended to be more peaceful and smaller than those in Tunisia and Egypt during the 2011 Arab Spring. But a stagnant economy and large numbers of refugees have fueled discontent. <\/p>\n

In 2012, the year the king bought one of his high-end Washington properties, thousands of his subjects swarmed the streets of cities and towns across Jordan to protest the removal of a fuel subsidy \u2013 a decision that many Jordanians feared would plunge them into poverty. They danced and sang rhymes. They compared Abdullah to Ali Baba, the poor man in \u201cThe Thousand and One Nights\u201d (or \u201cThe Arabian Nights\u201d) who became rich by intoning \u201cOpen sesame\u201d and then looting the 40 thieves\u2019 cave full of gold and gems. <\/p>\n

For the first time, protesters directed their ire at King Abdullah himself.<\/p>\n

People chanted in the streets: \u201cOh, Abdullah son of Hussien, where did the people\u2019s money go?<\/p>\n

There are those stealing millions and the rest eating plain bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pandora Papers<\/a> investigation reveals that Abdullah has owned at least 36 front companies in secretive tax havens.<\/p>\n

Email exchanges found among the leaked files show that for Abdullah\u2019s financial advisers, concealing the king\u2019s links to the companies, and the properties they acquired, was Job One.<\/p>\n

One of the the king\u2019s guides into the offshore world was Victoria Loraine, a British lawyer living on the shores of Lake Geneva, who owned a Swiss wealth-management company, Sansa Suisse SA. Sansa Suisse helped Abdullah form one of his earliest shell companies, Guinevere Enterprises Ltd., created in 1995 in the British Virgin Islands, according to records, which don\u2019t say what it was for. <\/p>\n

Another guide was Loraine\u2019s business partner, Andrew Evans, a British accountant. Evans spent more than two decades with the branch office of accounting giant PwC in the United Arab Emirates, according to his LinkedIn profile, before launching two wealth-management firms in Switzerland, Khalij Fiduciaire SA and FidiGere SA. Loraine and Evans were president and secretary, respectively, of Khalij Fiduciaire SA, according to Swiss company records. <\/p>\n

Through his companies, Evans acted as one of the king\u2019s primary wealth managers and keeper of records, according to correspondence between him and Alcogal.<\/p>\n

Names of a few of the king\u2019s offshore companies appear to have geographic or religious references: Quba Ltd. to one of Islam\u2019s oldest mosques and Zayer Ltd. to a word for tourists who visit holy places.<\/p>\n

While the leaked documents don\u2019t list the king\u2019s individual properties, their location, details and value can be found by matching shell company names to public property records. Reporters identified 12 of the king\u2019s companies as owners of real estate, including a $6.5 million condominium in Washington\u2019s chic Georgetown neighborhood purchased in 2012 by Zayer Ltd. In 2016, the king\u2019s son, Crown Prince Hussein, graduated with a diploma in international history from Georgetown University, a 10 minute walk from the luxury apartments. <\/p>\n

The documents don\u2019t reveal the exact purpose or assets of other shell companies owned by the king. Some are described as owning unspecified investments in the U.S. and Europe. <\/p>\n

Two of the king\u2019s three Malibu mansions are undergoing major changes, according to California planning records. One will be demolished and rebuilt at twice the size. The other, on a lot next to a state beach, will soon have a new swimming pool, a steel pergola and an imposing outdoor barbecue. <\/p>\n

On a recent visit by reporters, the houses appeared empty. \u201cBuilding a garage for the owner,\u201d one workman, on a break, shouted over the fence as six of them sat inside the wooden shell of a future carport. <\/p>\n

To the sound of weed wackers and barking sea lions, surfers in wetsuits walked past the king\u2019s western-most home on their way to Big Dume Beach. \u201cThis is an amazing street,\u201d said one neighbor on a morning walk. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

\"Properties
Properties belonging to King Abdullah II in Malibu, California. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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“You know who\u201d<\/h3>\n

Alcogal\u2019s office took charge of the king\u2019s affairs in Panama and the British Virgin Islands from as early as 2007, according to records. It was a natural choice for a sovereign seeking secrecy. <\/p>\n

A cluster of more than 50 Caribbean islands and cays east of Puerto Rico, the BVI has grown rich thanks to its financial sector. Creating and administering hundreds of thousands of shell companies for foreigners employs huddles of lawyers, accountants and others. Strict privacy laws and a top-down commitment to the offshore industry draw not only celebrities and politicians but also criminals. <\/p>\n

Since the 1990s, Alcogal\u2019s BVI office has helped customers create and operate front companies, according to ICIJ\u2019s analysis of the law firm\u2019s records. Founded by the son of a Panamanian ambassador to the U.S. and other elite lawyers, Alcogal has become a leading provider of offshore and legal services for multinationals and global elites of all stripes. <\/p>\n

Alcogal employees and Evans, Abdullah\u2019s adviser, understood the importance of discretion. Alcogal employees referred to the king as a \u201cfinal beneficiary\u201d living in Jordan. Evans preferred \u201cyou know who.\u201d <\/p>\n

The laws of the BVI and many other jurisdictions, including the U.S., require professional services firms like Alcogal to identify the possibility of money-laundering and other violations by their customers. Politicians and government officials are deemed \u201cpolitically exposed\u201d and especially susceptible to bribery and related crimes. BVI law provides for fines of up to $75,000 for each failure to identify or disclose such risks. <\/p>\n

Yet, in February 2017, Alcogal checked \u201cNO\u201d next to a question on an internal Alcogal risk-assessment document that asked if anyone connected to any of the king\u2019s companies was a politically exposed person, in other words, a politician or related to one. The same document listed the king\u2019s full name, date of birth and his residence as Amman\u2019s sprawling, marble-floored Raghadan Palace. <\/p>\n

Evans went to great lengths to ensure the king\u2019s ownership of the front companies remained a secret.<\/p>\n

In a 2016 draft business agreement with Alcogal, Evans\u2019s FidiGere questioned when, where and to whom the sovereign\u2019s name and offshore activities would be disclosed, according to a review of tracked changes and comments on the document.<\/p>\n

As written by Alcogal, the agreement required the offshore firm to share information about the king\u2019s ownership with BVI authorities in the event that foreign countries requested such information as part of criminal investigations. Evans demurred, wanting to know exactly who in the BVI could be told the whole truth: \u201cPlease would you define who is covered by the \u2018authorities,\u2019\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n

Evans modified the agreement to require that Alcogal further shield his \u201cunusually sensitive clients.\u201d According to his modification, Alcogal must store information received about such clients in hard-copy form only, making it less vulnerable to data leaks or human error, and provide access \u201conly on a need-to-know basis.\u201d The leaked documents do not say whether Alcogal accepted the modifications; the law firm continued to work with Evans and FidiGere after the agreement was discussed. <\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently we only have one client who fits this category\u201d of unusually sensitive clients, Evans wrote in the 2016 draft document. While he did not name the king or his companies directly, other documents sent around the same time mention Abdullah. <\/p>\n

Evans was particularly worried about what could happen to the king\u2019s passport. Evans agreed to provide Alcogal with an electronic copy but asked the firm to restrict access and secure it with a password. Alcogal complied. <\/p>\n

With document-handling issues resolved, Alcogal and Evans confronted a thorny question: whether to declare to BVI authorities that the companies\u2019 owner was the king of Jordan.<\/p>\n

The BVI stepped up disclosure requirements in the wake of bombshell expos\u00e9s of offshore secrecy, including ICIJ\u2019s 2016 Panama Papers investigation. Under new laws, firms that help clients create BVI companies must provide authorities with the names of the actual owners \u2013 known as \u201cultimate beneficial owners.\u201d The information is recorded on a confidential BVI government registry. Under BVI law, Alcogal must record such information even for companies that are later transferred to other tax havens like Panama, as were a number of the king\u2019s. <\/p>\n

According to the leaked documents, Evans, in emails, asked Alcogal to list on the confidential register one of Evans\u2019 firms \u2014 Khalij Fiduciaire or FidiGere \u2013 instead of the king.<\/p>\n

Alcogal\u2019s compliance officer in the BVI found that recording one of Evans\u2019 companies as the beneficial owner of the king\u2019s shell businesses was possible, according to an email from 2017. But the compliance officer also declared that doing so flouted at least the spirit of the new law, which sought to clean up the island\u2019s reputation as a haven for dirty money. The law also required Alcogal to provide ownership information \u201cwithout delay,\u201d the compliance officer wrote, and listing Khalij or FidiGere \u201cdoes not facilitate the \u2018without delay\u2019 part\u201d of the law. <\/p>\n

Hakim Creque, an attorney at prominent BVI law firm, Martin Kenney & Co., told ICIJ that a sovereign acting in a personal capacity \u201cshould be reported as the beneficial owner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcogal\u2019s files do not record the final decision. In a response to ICIJ, Alcogal declined to comment on individual cases, but said it accurately recorded BVI company owners in line with applicable law. The firm said that it conducts enhanced background checks on all politically-connected individuals. Due diligence laws have changed over time in countries where Alcogal operates, it said. <\/p>\n

Evans told ICIJ media partner in Switzerland, online and print publisher Tamedia, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he is retired and no longer works for the king. He did not answer questions. The king\u2019s attorneys told ICIJ that professionals manage the king\u2019s companies to ensure compliance with relevant legal and financial obligations. <\/p>\n

In 2018, after the email exchange, Abdullah was still grappling with the anti-tax protests that had gripped the country, where the median yearly salary is $7,620. After appointing al-Razzaz as Jordan\u2019s new prime minister, the king held a public meeting with palace-approved newspaper editors and journalists. <\/p>\n

The king reassured the public that he understood their economic pain. \u201cState institutions must adopt a method of action based on transparency and accountability,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n