Panama Papers confirm Canadian billionaire and university benefactor as mystery man in global bribery case

York University president Mamdouh Shoukri, left, shakes hands with Dahdaleh
in October after he donated $20 million to the school. York later announced it
would name an institute and building after him.

He has hobnobbed with the Queen and Bill Clinton. Donated a small fortune to Canadian universities. Runs a billion-dollar global business empire. And glides effortlessly in the highest echelons of corporate and political power.

Now, a joint CBC/Toronto Star investigation based on the Panama Papers provides the closing chapter in a years-long saga involving Canadian tycoon Victor Dahdaleh, which saw him battle criminal charges and a billion-dollar lawsuit on two continents over an international bribery scandal — all the while forging close ties with a trio of Canadian universities.

The huge leak of offshore financial records reveals Dahdaleh, a 72-year-old Jordanian-born metals magnate, is indeed, as long suspected, the mysterious middleman known in U.S. court documents as "Consultant A" — described as having handed out tens of millions of dollars in inducements to officials at a Persian Gulf smelting company in exchange for supplier contracts that went to one of the world's biggest aluminum conglomerates.  (more...)

Panama Papers confirm Canadian billionaire and university benefactor as mystery man in global bribery case

Dahdaleh still moves in the highest echelons of political and corporate power
after his involvement in an international bribery scandal.