The release of the Paradise Papers, a leak comprised of over 13.4 million documents, is giving insight into the tax havens of the world's elite, with a special focus on Britain's offshore empires, raising questions about why Queen Elizabeth II appears to have made millions by exploiting poor and mentally ill individuals.

The documents included in the leak came from two offshore services providers and the company registries of 19 tax havens, which was obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

ICIJ reported that the Paradise Papers "show how deeply the offshore financial system is entangled with the overlapping worlds of political players, private wealth and corporate giants, including Apple, Nike, Uber and other global companies that avoid taxes through increasingly imaginative bookkeeping maneuvers."

"Queen Elizabeth II has invested millions of dollars in medical and consumer loan companies, Appleby's files show. While the Queen's private estate, the Duchy of Lancaster, provides some details of its investments in U.K. property, such as commercial buildings scattered across southern England, it has never disclosed details of its offshore investments. 

'Yes, the Duchy was aware that the Jubilee Absolute Return Fund was run offshore,' said Chris Addock, chief finance officer of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

The records show that as of 2007, the queen's private estate invested in a Cayman Islands fund that in turn invested in a private equity company that controlled BrightHouse, a U.K. rent-to-own firm criticized by consumer watchdogs and members of Parliament for selling household goods to cash-strapped Britons on payment plans with interest rates as high as 99.9 percent."

According to a report from the Guardian, which partnered in sharing the revelations from the Paradise Papers, over the last 12 years at least, the Queen's estate has made significant investments in businesses such as the off-license chain Threshers and the retailer BrightHouse.