‘Everyone Is Used To It': Secrets Of The Powerful And Rich Met With A Weary Shrug

The revelations are eye-catching, but the test will be whether they lead to major reform

- Borzou Daragahi

A leak of documents over the weekend showed Azerbaijan’s strongman, Ilham Aliyev, had secretly bought $540m (£400m) worth of property worldwide, including a central London home registered in the name of his then 11-year-old son. But on the streets of Baku and other cities of the Caucasus nation of 10 million, infamous as a kleptocracy, there were shrugs. Azerbaijanis have long been used to the idea of their leader as corrupt, and they now broadly support him for leading a military victory over Armenia in a war last year. “A majority doesn’t really care about it,” said Arzu Geybulla, journalist and analyst specialising in the Caucasus and Turkey. “I don’t think they’re going to rise up. Not because they don’t care about corruption. Everyone is so used to it. Everyone knows about it. People don’t care because they know there won’t be any punishment.”

In films, the crusading journalist spends 90 minutes exposing corruption before police lead the bad guy away in shackles, just as the credits roll. The real world is never as simple, especially at a time when publics have grown almost immune to official misconduct and dysfunction and often vote for or acquiesce to autocrats appealing to vague notions of national or ethnic pride. On Sunday, a consortium of journalists and news organisations across the world unveiled the Pandora Papers, a series of reports based on 11.9 million leaked documents from more than a dozen private firms that show efforts by politicians and oligarchs worldwide to shield their potentially ill-gotten wealth from the eyes of tax collectors and the public. The trove reveals lavish spending and outrageous attempts to hide loot by the world’s super-rich.