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One problem I have with the Panama papers is not one American citizen or company is on the list. The worlds biggest swindle and not one American was playing?I love my country but that does defy human nature.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made data on 200,000 entities available on its website at 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT) Monday. They contain basic corporate information about companies, trusts and foundations set up in 21 jurisdictions including Hong Kong and the U.S. state of Nevada. The data was obtained from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which said it was hacked. Users can search the data and see the networks involving the offshore companies, including, where available, Mossack Fonseca's internal records of the true owners. Information and documents on bank accounts, phone numbers and emails have been removed from the database. Mossack Fonseca said last week it had sent a cease and desist letter to the ICIJ urging the organization not to publish the database, "taking into consideration that it is based on the theft of confidential information."
The ICIJ said it was putting the information online "in the public interest" as "a careful release of basic corporate information," not a "data dump," as it builds on an earlier database of offshore entities. Setting up an offshore company is not by itself illegal or evidence of illegal conduct, and Mossack Fonseca said it observed rules requiring it to identify its clients. The ICIJ prefaced the database release by noting that the appearance of particular persons and companies on the list doesn't imply wrongdoing. But anti-poverty campaigners say shell companies can be used by the wealthy and powerful to shield money from taxation, or to launder the gains from bribery, embezzlement and other forms of corruption. The Group of 20 most powerful economies has agreed that individual governments should make sure authorities can tell who really owns legally registered companies, but implementation in national law has lagged.
The data cache, first leaked to Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily, showed offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders. Sueddeutsche Zeitung says it was given the information by an anonymous source. Reports based on the documents quickly led to the resignation of Iceland's Prime Minister David Gunnlaugson after it was revealed he and his wife had set up a company in the British Virgin Islands that had holdings in Iceland's failed banks. British Prime Minister David Cameron, who had campaigned for financial transparency, faced questions about shares he once held in an offshore trust set up by his father. The ICIJ reported that associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin moved some $2 billion through such companies. Putin's spokesman dismissed the report. The ICIJ said Monday that Mossack Fonseca had files on dozens of Americans who have faced accusations of civil or criminal financial misconduct. That was based on reporting credited to consortium partners McClatchy Newspapers, the Portland Business Journal and Fusion Investigates.
Its website reported that people who had set up offshore companies included people with publicly available records of their legal troubles. One was a financier sentenced in 2002 to prison for fraud. The firm also set up a company for six Americans later sued for running a Ponzi scheme, a type of financial fraud in which new money is used to pay off earlier investors until the scheme collapses. The report said he leaked records "suggest that Mossack Fonseca's high-volume business model made it difficult for it to keep track of its clients' backgrounds and activities." The firm set up more than 100,000 offshore entities, such as trusts and shell companies, between 2005 and 2015, the report said. "Mossack Fonseca's working relationships with dozens of Americans tied to financial misconduct raises questions about how well the firm keeps its commitment to following international standards for preventing money laundering and keeping offshore companies out of the hands of criminal elements," the ICIJ report said.
News from The Associated Press
Earlier this month, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists launched a searchable public database for the Panama Papers, the more than 11.5 million documents leaked from a Panamanian law firm revealing how wealthy individuals, including government officials, used offshore accounts to hide wealth, some of it acquired illicitly. Now comes a searchable Internet portal containing thousands of documents pertaining to official malfeasance in Russia and other former Soviet states.
'Kleptocracies'
Launched by the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank, the Kleptocracy Archive provides access to a database that it says will enable users to "identify key actors in the complicated patronage and business networks that characterize kleptocracies" – a term used for governments whose officials engage in large-scale misappropriation of public funds for personal enrichment. The Kleptocracy Archive states that while the "individuals of interest" included in its database "are associated with kleptocratic regimes for many reasons," their inclusion "does not in itself imply wrongdoing of any kind," but nonetheless is "critical to understanding how modern kleptocracies function – and the grave threats they pose to democracy."
Majority of subjects are Russian
The database currently lists 94 "individuals" (although several reputed Russian organized crime gangs are listed among the "individuals"), including two sitting presidents – Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko. While the "individuals" listed are from four countries – Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Uzbekistan – the vast majority of them are Russian.
A screenshot of the Kleptocracy Archive website.
Look under the portal’s "Recently Added" heading and you will find the name of Vladimir Barsukov (also known as Vladimir Kumarin), who is described as "the former vice president of Petersburg Fuel Company (PTK)" and the "alleged boss" of the St. Petersburg-based Tambov criminal organization (which itself is also listed, separately, as a new entry). Last June, Spanish prosecutors filed a criminal complaint of more than 400 pages that linked close associates of President Putin, including officials in his government, with the Tambov group. Putin held several top posts in the St. Petersburg city administration before moving to Moscow in 1996.
Connection between Kremlin, organized crime
The arrests announced on Saturday are related to another scandal involving bribes paid by the Brazilian company Odebrecht. Ramon Fonseca Mora and Jurgen Mossack are partners at the Mossack Fonseca firm.
Prosecutors in Panama have formally arrested the two partners of the Mossack-Fonseca law firm involved in last year's "Panama Papers" scandal
Officials pulled them in for questioning on Thursday and formally detained them following two days of interrogations. The Attorney General's Office has searched the firm's offices, accusing them of setting up offshore accounts that allowed a Brazilian construction company to funnel bribes to various countries.
The two face charges of money laundering. Odebrecht has acknowledged paying 800 million US dollars (£640 million) in bribes across Latin America.
'Panama Papers' law firm partners arrested over money laundering claims - Independent.ie
Firm founders Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca were detained because of the risk they might try to flee the country. Attorney General Kenia Porcell told reporters on Saturday that the information collected so far "allegedly identifies the Panamanian firm as a criminal organisation that is dedicated to hiding assets or money from suspicious origins." Porcell said the one-year investigation that led to the arrests has been aided by prosecutors in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Switzerland and the United States.
Mossack Fonseca is also at the centre of a separate case known as the Panama Papers, which involved millions of documents stolen from the firm and leaked to the media in April 2016. The fallout from the leaks provoked a global scandal after numerous documents detailed how the rich and powerful used offshore corporations to hide money and potentially evade taxes. On Thursday, prosecutors raided Mossack Fonseca offices seeking evidence, and the homes of the firm's founders were searched on Friday.
Fonseca, a former presidential adviser in Panama, has previously denied that the firm had any connection to Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht, which has admitted to bribing officials in Panama and other countries to obtain government contracts in the region between 2010 and 2014. "This investigation in principle is not related to Odebrecht, but to the Lava Jato case," Porcell said, referring to the probe centred on Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras. Fonseca has also denied any relationship with the Lava Jato case.
Following the arrests, Mossack Fonseca defence lawyer Elias Solano called the accusations against the firm's founders "weak" and said he would challenge the evidence presented against his clients. A source in the prosecutors office told Reuters that an unidentified third lawyer with the firm had also been arrested, while a fourth faces an arrest warrant, but her whereabouts are unknown. The two additional lawyers were not named by Porcell.
Panama detains Mossack Fonseca founders on corruption charges
The so-called Panama Papers, which consist of millions of documents stolen from Mossack Fonseca and leaked to the media in April 2016, provoked a global scandal after showing how the rich and powerful used offshore corporations to evade taxes. “The reputational deterioration, the media campaign, the financial circus and the unusual actions by certain Panamanian authorities, have occasioned an irreversible damage that necessitates the obligatory ceasing of public operations at the end of the current month,” the firm said in a statement.
Mossack Fonseca said a skeleton staff would remain in order to comply with requests from authorities and other public and private groups. Nonetheless, the law firm said it would continue “fighting for justice,” adding it would continue to cooperate with authorities.
Last month, Panamanian prosecutors raided the offices of Mossack Fonseca, seeking possible links to Brazilian engineering company Odebrecht. The Brazilian construction firm has admitted to bribing officials in Panama and other countries to obtain contracts in the region between 2010 and 2014.
Ramon Fonseca, a partner at Mossack Fonseca, denied last month that his firm had a connection to Odebrecht, while accusing Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela of directly receiving money from Odebrecht, Latin America’s largest engineering company. Varela has denied that he took any money from Odebrecht.
Panama Papers law firm Mossack Fonseca to shut down after tax scandal
