 Film stars in spotlight after Panama Papers leak New Delhi (AFP) April 4, 2016 - Bollywood's Amitabh Bachchan and martial arts movie star Jackie Chan are among celebrities who feature Monday in a massive leak of documents, some of which reveal hidden offshore assets. Bollywood legend Bachchan, simply known as the "Big B" in India, was appointed director of at least four shipping companies registered in offshore tax havens and set up 23 years ago. The authorised capital of these companies ranged from just $5,000 to $50,000 but they traded in ships worth millions of dollars, according to the Indian Express newspaper. The Express is among more than 100 media groups which have investigated a massive leak of 11.5 million documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm with offices in 35 countries. Bachchan, who has long since resigned from the companies and has not commented on the documents, is not the only member of his famous family named in the leaks. His daughter-in-law, actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, was also director and shareholder of an offshore company, along with members of her family, before it was thought to have been wound up in 2008, according to the newspaper. The media adviser of the former Miss World winner has rejected the documents as "totally untrue and false". As with many of Fonseca's clients, there is no evidence that the Bollywood A-listers used their companies for improper purposes and having an offshore entity is not illegal. But the documents, naming more than 500 Indians including real estate tycoons in Fonseca's list of offshore companies, foundations and trusts, come at a sensitive time in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has vowed to crack down on the "menace" of so-called black money -- vast sums stashed abroad to keep them secret from Indian tax authorities. Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan has also been revealed to have at least six companies represented by Fonseca's firm, though he too may have used the companies legitimately for business purposes rather than for tax avoidance. The stash of records was obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with media worldwide. The documents, from around 214,000 offshore entities, cover almost 40 years.
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The families of some of China's top communist brass -- including President Xi Jinping -- used offshore tax havens to conceal their fortunes, a treasure trove of leaked documents has revealed.
At least eight current or former members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the ruling Communist Party's most powerful body, have been implicated, highlighting the hot-button issue of wealth among China's ruling elite.
The eight are among 140 political figures around the world alleged to have links to offshore accounts, after an investigation into the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.
One of the people named in the leaks is Xi's brother-in-law Deng Jiagui, who set up two British Virgin Islands companies in 2009 when his famous relation was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee but not yet president.
Xi has been dogged by foreign media reports of great family wealth. The claims are ignored by mainstream Chinese outlets, and their publication on the Internet in China is suppressed.
In 2012 the Bloomberg news agency published investigations into the vast wealth said to have been amassed by Xi's family, revealing that Deng and his wife had accumulated several hundred million dollars in company shares and property assets.
Since becoming president that same year, Xi has staked his reputation on pushing for transparency by initiating a vast anti-graft campaign to clean the party's ranks of corruption and to reassert his authority.
The daughter of former premier Li Peng -- who was in power from 1987 to 1998 --- was also identified in the documents.
They revealed that Li Xiaolin, the former vice president of state-run power company China Power Investment Corporation, was the beneficiary of a Liechtenstein foundation controlling a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands during the period when her father was in office.
A granddaughter of Jia Qinglin, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Li Xiaolin was also the sole shareholder in several offshore companies, through which she discretely controlled companies within China.
The so-called "Panama Papers" were obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with media worldwide by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Chinese media remained silent on the revelations about the country's elite.
But while the the ICIJ's website is officially blocked in the country, users of the micro-blog Weibo who had managed to see the findings began discussing them online.
"My confidence in socialism has suddenly collapsed," quipped one user, before the post was promptly removed.
The revelations come two years after an ICIJ investigation identified nearly 22,000 offshore clients from mainland China and Hong Kong, including relatives of former president Hu Jintao, former premier Li Peng and late leader Deng Xiaoping, the man credited with opening up China's economy in the 1980s.
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