Pandora Papers

The U.S. government wants to seize the assets of Russian political and business leaders. The move comes in response to the military invasion of Ukraine.South Dakota’s growing trust industry has laws designed to protect the identity and wealth held by its clients. State leaders support the integrity of the industry. However, a new round of attention on Russia’s financial elite continues to raise questions.

A routine bill that tweaks the state’s trust law did not get introduced this legislative session. That comes following a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists detailing how the trust industry grew over the last few years and who was holding their money here.

The South Dakota Trust industry is facing increased scrutiny over money held in the state privately. But is South Dakota really harboring ill-gotten gains and enabling international corruption? Our guest is journalist Casey Michel. His book is called "American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History."

Democrat U.S. representatives want to see changes to the trust industry after the Pandora Papers revealed that some South Dakota-based trusts are holding money for clients accused of crime, corruption and human-rights abuses.

When reporters Will Fitzgibbon and Debbie Cenziper began digging into the Pandora Papers — nearly 12 million confidential files leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists whose contents would go on to reverberate across the world — they noticed something curious.

British journalist Oliver Bullough wrote a book on these practices years before the Post article. He explains why South Dakota and other trust havens should think critically about the impact of this industry.

The recent publication of the Pandora Papers revealed South Dakota as a financial and tax haven. But a 2020 poll conducted by South Dakota State University shows South Dakotans don’t see their state that way. Respondents overwhelmingly believe that agriculture, not finance, dominates the state’s economy.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the wake of the Pandora Papers would make trust companies investigate foreign clients.

The offshore system thrives in South Dakota despite decades of legislation and international agreements aimed at combating tax-dodging. SDPB's Lee Strubinger teaches us about a task force in the legislature who, year after year, reaffirms the state's commitment to the trust industry.

South Dakota has become a leader in the global trust industry. An international investigative journalism project has revealed details about who exactly moves money through the state and how that money was earned, sparking outcries about the ethics of an industry. Dakota Political Junkies Tom Dempster and Jon Hunter discuss how we got here and what the Pandora Papers mean for the South Dakota financial sector.