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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mylanka58" data-source="post: 27959193" data-attributes="member: 556429">When embattled Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa attempted to flee his country in the face of economic and political crisis this week, he chose the United Arab Emirates as his preferred destination, underscoring the ruling Rajapaksa family’s ties to the Persian Gulf financial hub.Rajapaksa and some of his relatives, including a former finance minister, were stopped from boarding flights to Dubai, the UAE’s commercial center, on Tuesday as protesters surrounded the airport, CNN <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/12/asia/sri-lanka-crisis-gotabaya-rajapaksa-airport-intl/index.html" target="_blank">reported</a>. Rajapaksa was expected to resign today, but instead fled to the Maldives on a military jet, with some media speculating that he may head to Dubai at a later stage.The vast wealth of the Rajapaksa family, who have dominated the country’s politics for nearly two decades, became a flashpoint in <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/engulfed-by-economic-collapse-and-mass-protests-sri-lankas-pandora-papers-probe-stalled/" target="_blank">massive protests that have engulfed the country</a> since March as Sri Lanka faces critical shortages of fuel, medicines and other goods partly triggered by years of mismanagement of state funds. A series of top political resignations left the president and his brother, then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, further isolated. The mass demonstrations culminated in hundreds of protesters <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1111087981/sri-lankan-protesters-partied-in-the-presidents-mansion-what-comes-next-is-uncle" target="_blank">occupying the palaces of the president and prime minister</a> on Saturday, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/7/12/photos-inside-sri-lanka-presidents-house-occupied-by-protesters" target="_blank">partying at the estates</a> and setting the latter <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka-prime-minister-house-fire-protests-b2119574.html" target="_blank">on fire </a>in recent days.The hidden assets of some Rajapaksa family members were revealed last fall in the Pandora Papers, a global investigation of offshore finance led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The documents revealed how <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/sri-lanka-rajapaksa-family-offshore-wealth-power/" target="_blank">Nirupama Rajapaksa, a scion of the ruling family, and her husband, businessman Thirukumar Nadesan, had used secretive shell companies and trusts</a> to accumulate more than $18 million in tax havens, and own artworks and luxury properties in London and Sydney.<img src="https://media.icij.org/uploads/2022/07/Nadesan-UAE-2-360x200.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Thirukumar Nadesan’s UAE resident identity card. Image: Pandora PapersThe <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/" target="_blank">Pandora Papers</a> documents, leaked from 14 offshore service providers, show that the couple has secret ownership ties to UAE properties as well.Included in the leak of 11.9 million confidential files are utility bills, a UAE resident identity card and other records showing that, as of 2019, Nadesan and the couple’s two children were residents of Dubai. The documents link them to an apartment in a luxury residential skyscraper but don’t say whether the family owns the property.Nadesan, identified in the files as the manager of a Dubai-based asphalt trader in 2016, also listed another Dubai address as his residence in an application to open a bank account for one of his shell companies.<a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/as-sri-lankas-ruling-rajapaksas-flee-pandora-papers-reveal-ties-to-uae-properties/" target="_blank">Source</a></blockquote>

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