MAFISADI SABA WALIOFICHA FEDHA NCHI ZAA NJE WATAJWA

Seven Tanzanians have about $40 million (TSh64 billion) stashed in offshore accounts in British Virgin Islands and Jersey, The Citizen can reveal today.

The revelation comes in the wake of reports that the committee set up by the Tanzanian government to trace the owners of the $196.87 million allegedly kept in Swiss banks has failed to come up with adequate evidence.

According to leaked offshore data obtained by the UK’s Guardian newspaper in collaboration with the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICJ) and analysed by over 110 journalists worldwide, seven Tanzanians operate offshore accounts.

The ICIJ’s exploration of offshore secrets began when a computer hard drive packed with corporate data arrived in the post. Gerard Ryle, the ICIJ’s director, obtained the small black box as a result of his three-year investigation of Australia’s Firepower scandal, a case involving offshore havens and corporate fraud.

The hard drive contained more than 260 gigabytes, the equivalent of half a million books. Its files included two million emails and four large databases. There were details of more than 122,000 offshore companies or trusts, and nearly 12,000 intermediaries (agents or “introducers”).

Unlike the smaller cache of US cables and war logs passed in 2010 to WikiLeaks, the offshore data was not structured or clean, but an unsorted collation of internal memos and instructions, official documents, emails, databases and spreadsheets, scanned passports and accounting ledgers.

The leaked data, also seen by [private daily] The Citizen, could shed light on how the offshore account holders operate to avoid being detected by relevant authorities.

The Citizen understands that there are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. This being the case, the revelation of Tanzanians operating offshore accounts does not intend to suggest or imply that the individuals have broken the law or obtained their billions illegally.

According to the leaked data the seven individuals, listed as officers and master clients, all have addresses in Dar es Salaam.

They are Mr Andre Schmid, Mr Kaniz Mehbub Manji, Mr Mehbub Yusufali Manji, Mr Rameshchandra Chotalal Somani, Mr Stuart Hugh Macdonald and Mr C Rameshchandra Somani.

It is not clear whether these Tanzanians acted as underlying officers in offshore banking or are the real owners of the billions wired into their accounts in Virgin Islands.