Panama Papers

The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) published from April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities.[1][2][3][4][5][6] These documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, the former Panamanian offshore law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca,[7][8] and compiled with similar leaks into a searchable database.[9]

The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials previously private.[10] Their publication made it possible to prosecute Jan Marsalek, a person of interest to a number of European governments and revealed his links with Russian intelligence,[11] and international financial fraudster Harald Joachim von der Goltz.[12] While offshore business entities are legal, reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.[13]

"John Doe", the whistleblower who leaked the documents to German journalist Bastian Obermayer[14][15] from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), remains anonymous, even to the journalists who worked on the investigation. "My life is in danger", the whistleblower told them.[16] In a document (released on May 6 2016), Doe cited income inequality as the reason for the action and said the documents were leaked "simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described".[17][18] Doe had never worked for any government or intelligence agency and expressed willingness to help prosecutors if granted immunity from prosecution.[18] After SZ verified that the statement did in fact come from the source for the Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) posted the full document on its website.[19][20]

SZ asked the ICIJ for help because of the data involved. Journalists from 107 media organizations in 80 countries analyzed documents detailing the operations of the law firm. After more than a year of analysis, the first news stories were published on April 3, 2016, along with 150 of the documents themselves.[21] The project represents an important milestone in the use of data journalism software tools and mobile collaboration.

The documents were dubbed the Panama Papers because of the country they were leaked from. Still, the Panamanian government, as well as other entities in Panama and elsewhere, expressed strong objections to the name over concerns that it would tarnish the government's and country's image worldwide.[22] Some media outlets covering the story have used the name "Mossack Fonseca papers".[23]

In June 2024, a judge in Panama acquitted all former Mossack Fonseca employees, including the two founders, due to insufficient evidence and problems with the chain of custody of evidence.

Disclosures

In addition to the much-covered business dealings of British prime minister David Cameron and Icelandic prime minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the leaked documents also contain identity information about the shareholders and directors of 214,000 shell companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, as well as some of their financial transactions. Although it is generally not against the law to own an offshore shell company, reporters found that some of the shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.

The journalists on the investigative team found business transactions by many important figures in world politics, sports, and art. While many of the transactions were legal, since the data is incomplete, questions remain in many other cases; still others seem to clearly indicate ethical if not legal impropriety. Some disclosures – tax avoidance in very poor countries by very wealthy entities and individuals for example – led to questions on moral grounds. For example, the shell company Octea is registered to Beny Steinmetz and owes more than US$700,000 in property taxes to the city of Koidu in Sierra Leone, and is $150 million in debt, even though its exports were more than twice that in an average month in the 2012–2015 period.[24] Steinmetz himself has a personal worth of $6 billion.[25]

Other offshore shell company transactions described in the documents seem to have broken exchange laws, violated trade sanctions or stemmed from political corruption, according to ICIJ reporters. For example:

Named in the leak were 12 extant or former world leaders; 128 other public officials and politicians; and hundreds of celebrities, businessmen, and other wealthy individuals from over 200 countries.[29]

One notable case involved former Iceland prime minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who was found to possess a secret offshore account in a shell company called Wintris Inc., along with his wife. When Gunnlaugsson was elected in 2013, he had promised to be tougher on Iceland's foreign creditors. However, as revealed by the Panama Papers, Wintris Inc., which he and his wife owned a stake in, was one of these creditors. This conflict of interest ultimately led to his resignation in 2016.[30]

Uruguay has arrested five people and charged them with money laundering through Mossack Fonseca shell companies for a Mexican drug cartel.[26]
Ouestaf, an ICIJ partner in the investigation, reported that it had discovered new evidence that Karim Wade received payments from DP World (DP). He and a long-time friend were convicted of this in a trial that the United Nations and Amnesty International said was unfair and violated the defendants' rights. The Ouestaf article does not address the conduct of the trial, but does say that Ouestaf journalists found Mossack Fonseca documents showing payments to Wade via a DP subsidiary and a shell company registered to the friend.[27]
Swiss lawyer Dieter Neupert has been accused of mishandling client funds and helping both oligarchs and the Qatari royal family to hide money.[28]

Tax haven

Individuals and entities may open offshore accounts for any number of reasons, some of which are legal. A Canadian lawyer based in Dubai noted, for example, that businesses might wish to avoid falling under Islamic inheritance jurisprudence if an owner dies.[31] Businesses in some countries may wish to hold some of their funds in dollars also, said a Brazilian lawyer.[32] Estate planning is another example of legal tax avoidance.

American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick had an estimated personal worth of $20 million when he died in 1999, much of it invested in an 18th-century English manor he bought in 1978. He lived in that manor for the rest of his life, filming scenes from The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut there as well. Three holding companies set up by Mossack Fonseca now own the property, and are in turn held by trusts set up for his children and grandchildren.[33] Since Kubrick was an American living in Britain, without the trust his estate would have had to pay transfer taxes to both governments and possibly have been forced to sell the property to obtain the liquid assets to pay them.[34] Kubrick is buried on the grounds along with one of his daughters, and the rest of his family still lives there.[33][34]

Other uses are more ambiguous. Chinese companies may incorporate offshore in order to raise foreign capital, normally against the law in China.[35] In some of the world's hereditary dictatorships, the law may be on the side of the elite who use offshore companies to award oil contracts to themselves,[36] or gold concessions to their children,[37] however such dealings are sometimes prosecuted under international law.[38]

While no standard official definition exists, The Economist and the International Monetary Fund describe an offshore financial center, or tax haven, as a jurisdiction whose banking infrastructure primarily provides services to people or businesses who do not live there, requires little or no disclosure of information when doing business, and offers low taxes.[39][40]

"The most obvious use of offshore financial centers is to avoid taxes", The Economist added.[39] Oxfam blamed tax havens in its 2016 annual report on income inequality for much of the widening gap between rich and poor. "Tax havens are at the core of a global system that allows large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, "depriving governments, rich and poor, of the resources they need to provide vital public services and tackle rising inequality".[41]

International Monetary Fund (IMF) researchers estimated in July 2015 that profit shifting by multinational companies costs developing countries around US$213 billion a year, almost two percent of their national income.[42]

Real estate in London, where housing prices increased 50% from 2007 to 2016, also is frequently purchased by overseas investors.[43][44][45] Donald Toon, then head of Britain's National Crime Agency, said in 2015 that "the London property market has been skewed by laundered money. Prices are being artificially driven up by overseas criminals who want to sequester their assets here in the UK".[45] Three-quarters of Londoners under 35 cannot afford to buy a home.[45]

Andy Yan, an urban planning researcher and adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, studied real estate sales in Vancouver—also thought to be affected by foreign purchasers—found that 18% of the transactions in Vancouver's most expensive neighborhoods were cash purchases, and 66% of the owners appeared to be Chinese nationals or recent arrivals from China.[46] Calls for more data on foreign investors have been rejected by the provincial government.[47] Chinese nationals accounted for 70% of 2014 Vancouver home sales for more than CA$3 million.[48] On June 24, 2016, China CITIC Bank Corp filed suit in Canada against a Chinese citizen who borrowed CN¥50 million for his lumber business in China, but then withdrew roughly CA$7.5 million from the line of credit and left the country. He bought three houses in Vancouver and Surrey, British Columbia together valued at CA$7.3 million during a three-month period in June 2014.[49]

International banking

"This issue will surely be raised at the G20 summit," predicted Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the European Union (EU) to India. "We need to strengthen international cooperation for the exchange of tax information between tax authorities".[50] Panama, Vanuatu and Lebanon may find themselves on a list of uncooperative tax havens that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) re-activated in July 2016 at the request of G20 nations, warned Le Monde, a French newspaper that participated in the investigation. Those three countries followed none of the OECD's three broad guidelines for international banking cooperation:[51]

The OECD, the G20, or the European Union could also institute another list of countries that are inadequate in more than one area. Countries meeting none of these criteria, such as Panama, Vanuatu and Lebanon, would go on the blacklist. Countries that meet only one criterion would go on the greylist.[51] In April 2016, if this greylist had been in place it would have included nine countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Brunei, Dominica, Liberia, Nauru, Samoa, Tobago and the United Arab Emirates.[51]

information exchange on request
a signed multilateral agreement on information standards
a commitment to implement automated information exchange in 2017 or 2018[51]

Illegal activities

While offshore business entities are not illegal in the jurisdictions where they are registered, and often not illegal at all, reporters found that some Mossack Fonseca shell corporations seem to have been used for illegal purposes including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion and evading international sanctions.

Offshore companies are legal, said Panamanian lawyer and former controller of the republic Alvin Weeden; illegality arises when they are used for money laundering, arms smuggling, terrorism, or tax evasion.[52]

On October 22, 2016, during a state visit to Germany, Varela told journalist Jenny Pérez, of Deutsche Welle that there had been "progress" in transparency and many agreements to exchange tax information, and that tax evasion was a global problem. Asked about his ties with Ramón Fonseca Mora, managing partner of the firm Mossack Fonseca, he acknowledged that he is a friend.[53]

In October 2020, German authorities issued an international arrest warrant for the two founders of the law firm at the core of the tax evasion scandal exposed by the Panama Papers. Cologne prosecutors sought German-born Jürgen Mossack and Panamanian Ramón Fonseca on charges of accessory to tax evasion and forming a criminal organization.[54]

Igor Angelini, head of Europol's Financial Intelligence Group, said that shell companies "play an important role in large-scale money laundering activities" and that they are often a means to "transfer bribe money".[55] Tax Justice Network concluded in a 2012 report that "designing commercial tax abuse schemes and turning a blind eye upon suspicious transactions have become an inherent part of the work of bankers and accountants".[56]

Money laundering affects the first world as well, since a favored shell company investment is real estate in Europe and North America. London, Miami, New York, Paris, Vancouver and San Francisco have all been affected. The practice of parking assets in luxury real estate has been frequently cited as fueling rocketing housing prices in Miami,[57][58][59] where the Miami Association of Realtors said that cash sales accounted for 90% of new home sales in 2015.[60] "There is a huge amount of dirty money flowing into Miami that's disguised as investment," according to former congressional investigator Jack Blum.[61] In Miami, 76% of condo owners pay cash (as opposed to using a mortgage), a practice considered a red flag for money-laundering, as of 2016.[61] Analysis from Redfin in 2022 found that 31.9% of houses were purchased with cash across the 39 largest metropolitan areas in the US.[62] This is higher than the sub 25% cash purchase rate as seen during the purchase of the Panama papers.[62]

Leaked documents also indicate that the firm would also backdate documents on request and, based on a 2007 exchange of emails in the leaked documents, it did so routinely enough to establish a price structure: $8.75 per month in the past.[63] In 2008, Mossack Fonseca hired a 90-year-old British man to pretend to be the owner of the offshore company of Marianna Olszewski, a US businesswoman, "a blatant breach of anti–money laundering rules" according to the BBC.[64]

Recovered money

In April 2019, the ICIJ and European newspapers reported that the global tally of recovered sums from litigation, fines and back taxes exceeded $1.2 billion. Great Britain recovered the largest amount ($253 million), followed by Denmark ($237 million), Germany ($183 million), Spain ($164 million), France ($136 million) and Australia ($93 million). Colombia recovered $89 million, the highest amount for any South or Central American country. As of August 2019, investigations are ongoing in Austria, Canada and Switzerland, and many other countries are conducting inspections of companies and private individuals revealed in the report.[65][66]

Newsroom logistics

The ICIJ helped organize the research and document review once Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) realized the scale of the work required to validate the authenticity of 2.6 terabytes of leaked data. The group enlisted reporters and resources from a variety of outlets including The Guardian, BBC, Le Monde, SonntagsZeitung, Falter, La Nación, German broadcasters NDR and WDR, and Austrian broadcaster ORF.[67] Ultimately, "reporters at 100 news media outlets working in 25 languages had used the documents" to investigate individuals and organizations associated with Mossack Fonseca.[3]

Operations security factored into a number of project management considerations. Saying "my life is in danger,"[68] one anonymous "John Doe" insisted that reporters communicate over encrypted channels only and agreed that they would never meet face-to-face.[69][70][71]

SZ also had concerns about security, not only for their source, the leaked documents, and their data, but also for the safety of some of their partners in the investigation living under corrupt regimes who might not want their money-handling practices made public. They stored the data in a room with limited physical access on air-gapped computers that were never connected to the Internet. The Guardian also limited access to its journalists' project work area. To make it even harder to sabotage the computers or steal their drives, SZ journalists made them more tamper-evident by painting the screws holding the drives in place with glitter nail polish.[72]

Reporters sorted the documents into a huge file structure containing a folder for each shell company, which held the associated emails, contracts, transcripts, and scanned documents Mossack Fonseca had generated while doing business with the company or administering it on a client's behalf. Some 4.8 million leaked files were emails, 3 million were database entries, 2.2 million PDFs, 1.2 million images, 320,000 text files, and 2242 files in other formats.[73]

Journalists indexed the documents using open software packages Apache Solr and Apache Tika,[74] and accessed them by means of a custom interface built on top of Blacklight.[74][75] Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters also used Nuix for this, which is proprietary software donated by an Australian company also named Nuix.[76]

Using Nuix, Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters performed optical character recognition (OCR) processing on the millions of scanned documents, converting the data they contained to searchable and machine-readable text. Most project reporters then used Neo4J and Linkurious[74] to extract individual and corporate names from the documents for analysis, but some who had access to Nuix used it for this as well.[76] Reporters cross-referenced the compiled lists of people against the processed documents, then analyzed the information, trying to connect people, roles, monetary flow, and structure legality.

US banking and SEC expert David P. Weber assisted journalists in reviewing information from the Panama Papers.[77]

Additional stories were released based on this data, and the full list of companies was released in early May 2016.[78] The ICIJ later announced the release on May 9, 2016, of a searchable database containing information on over 200,000 offshore entities implicated in the Panama Papers investigation and more than 100,000 additional companies implicated in the 2013 Offshore Leaks investigation.[79] Mossack Fonseca asked the ICIJ not to publish the leaked documents from its database. "We have sent a cease and desist letter," the company said in a statement.[80]

The sheer quantity of leaked data greatly exceeds the WikiLeaks Cablegate leak in 2010 (1.7 GB),[81] Offshore Leaks in 2013 (260 GB), the 2014 Lux Leaks (4 GB), and the 3.3 GB Swiss Leaks of 2015. For comparison, the 2.6 TB of the Panama Papers equals approximately 2,660 GB.

Data security

Mossack Fonseca notified its clients on April 1, 2016, that it had sustained an email hack. Mossack Fonseca also told news sources that the company had been hacked and always operated within the law.[82]

Data security experts noted, however, that the company had not been encrypting its emails[74] and furthermore seemed to have been running a three-year-old version of Drupal with several known vulnerabilities.[74] According to James Sanders of TechRepublic, Drupal ran on the Apache 2.2.15 version from March 6, 2010, and worse, the Oracle fork of Apache, which by default allows users to view directory structure.[83]

The network architecture was also inherently insecure; the email and web servers were not segmented from the client database in any way.[84]

Some reports[85] also suggest that some parts of the site may have been running WordPress with an out-of-date version of Slider Revolution, a plugin whose previously announced vulnerabilities[86] are well-documented.

A grey hat hacker named 1×0123 announced on April 12 that Mossack Fonseca's content management system had not been secured from SQL injection, a well-known database attack vector, and that he had been able to access the customer database because of this.[87]

Computer security expert Chris Kubecka announced on May 24, 2016, that the Mossack Fonseca client login portal was running four different government-grade remote access trojans (RATs). Kubecka confirmed there were still numerous critical vulnerabilities, too many open ports in their infrastructure and internet access to their archive server due to weak security.[88] Kubecka explained how each data security issue was discovered in detail in a book titled Down the Rabbit Hole: An OSINT Journey.[89]

Leak and leak journalism

Gerard Ryle, director of the ICIJ, called the leak "probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents".[90] Edward Snowden described the release in a Twitter message as the "biggest leak in the history of data journalism".[91] The ICIJ also said that the leak was "likely to be one of the most explosive [leaks of inside information in history] in the nature of its revelations".[92]

"This is a unique opportunity to test the effectiveness of leaktivism", said Micah White, co-founder of Occupy, "... the Panama Papers are being dissected via an unprecedented collaboration between hundreds of highly credible international journalists who have been working secretly for a year. This is the global professionalization of leaktivism. The days of WikiLeaks amateurism are over."[93]

WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic investigative journalist who worked on Cablegate in 2010, said withholding some documents for a time does maximise the leak's impact, but called for full online publication of the Panama Papers eventually.[94] A tweet from WikiLeaks criticized the decision of the ICIJ not to release everything for ethical reasons: "If you censor more than 99% of the documents you are engaged in 1% journalism by definition."[95]

The whistleblower reported that the murder of journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 and Ján Kuciak in 2018 due to their investigations of the Panama Papers had deeply affected him and called upon the European Union to deliver justice.[96]

People named

Reports from April 3 note the law firm's many connections to high-ranking political figures and their relatives, as well as celebrities and business figures.[97] Among other things, the leaked documents illustrate how wealthy individuals, including public officials, can keep personal financial information private.

Initial reports identified five then-heads of state or government leaders from Argentina, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates as well as government officials, close relatives, and close associates of various heads of government of more than forty other countries. Names of then-current national leaders in the documents include President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and the Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.[97]

Former heads of state mentioned in the papers include:

Former prime ministers:

The leaked files identified 61 family members and associates of prime ministers, presidents and kings,[106] including:

Other clients included less senior government officials and their close relatives and associates, from over forty countries.[97]

Over £10 million of cash from the sale of the gold stolen in the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery was laundered, first unwittingly and later with the complicity of Mossack Fonseca, through a Panamanian company, Feberion Inc. The company was set up on behalf of an unnamed client twelve months after the robbery. The Brinks money was put through Feberion and other front companies, through banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Jersey, and the Isle of Man. It issued bearer shares only. Two nominee directors from Sark were appointed to Feberion by Jersey-based offshore specialist Centre Services.[109] The offshore firms recycled the funds through land and property transactions in the United Kingdom.[109] Although the Metropolitan Police Service raided the offices of Centre Services in late 1986 in cooperation with Jersey authorities, and seized papers and two Feberion bearer shares, it wasn't until 1995 that Brink's-Mat's solicitors were finally able to take control of Feberion and the assets.[109]

Actor Jackie Chan is mentioned in the leaked documents as a shareholder in six companies based in the British Virgin Islands.[110]

Argentinian president Mauricio Macri who was president from December 2015 to December 2019. Moreover, the moral problem, the opposers claimed illegality because he never put this in his patrimonial declarations. For one of the official sources of Panama papers: "Macri's official spokesman Ivan Pavlovsky said that the Argentine president didn't list Fleg Trading Ltd. as an asset because he had no capital participation in the company. The company, used to participate in interests in Brazil, was related to the family business group. "This is why Maricio Macri was occasionally its director," he said, reiterating that Macri was not a shareholder."[98][99]
Sudanese president Ahmed al-Mirghani, who was president from 1986–1989 and died in 2008.[97][100]
Former Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani owned Afrodille S.A., which had a bank account in Luxembourg and shares in two South African companies. Al Thani also held a majority of the shares in Rienne S.A. and Yalis S.A., holding a term deposit with the Bank of China in Luxembourg. A relative owned 25 percent of these: Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, Qatar's former prime minister and foreign minister.[101]

Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili of Georgia[102]
Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine[97]
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a former vice president of Iraq, owned property through Mossack Fonseca shell companies registered in Panama and the British Virgin Islands, for security reasons following an assassination attempt, according to his spokesperson, who added that any income from the properties was reported and taxes paid "promptly and on time".[103]
Ion Sturza of Moldova.[104]
Ali Abu al-Ragheb of Jordan.[105]

the brother-in-law of China's paramount leader Xi Jinping[97]
the son of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak[97]
children of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif[97]
children of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev[97]
Clive Khulubuse Zuma, the nephew of former South African President Jacob Zuma[107]
Nurali Aliyev, the grandson of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev[97]
Mounir Majidi, the personal secretary of Moroccan King Mohammed VI[97]
Kojo Annan, the son of former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan[97]
Mark Thatcher, the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher[108]
Juan Armando Hinojosa, the "favourite contractor" of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.[97]
Spanish Royal Family: Infanta Pilar, Duchess of Badajoz and her son Bruno Gómez-Acebes, Iñaki Urdangarín, Amalio de Marichalar, and people close to the family like the mistress of former King Juan Carlos I, Corinna Larsen.[97]

Client services

Mossack Fonseca is one of the biggest in its field and the biggest financial institutions refer customers to it. Its services to clients include incorporating and operating shell companies in friendly jurisdictions on their behalf.[111] They can include creating "complex shell company structures" that, while legal, also allow the firm's clients "to operate behind an often impenetrable wall of secrecy".[112] The leaked papers detail some of their intricate, multilevel, and multinational corporate structures.[113] Mossack Fonseca has acted with global consultancy partners like Emirates Asset Management Ltd, Ryan Mohanlal Ltd, Sun Hedge Invest and Blue Capital Ltd on behalf of more than 300,000 companies, most of them registered in the British Overseas Territories.

Sanctioned clients

Many firms and individuals take advantage of the anonymity of offshore shell companies to circumvent international sanctions. More than 30 Mossack Fonseca clients were at some point in time blacklisted by the US Treasury Department, including businesses linked to senior figures in Russia, Syria and North Korea.[114]

Three Mossack Fonseca companies started for clients of Helene Mathieu Legal Consultants were later sanctioned by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Pangates International Corporation was accused in July 2014 of supplying the government of Syria with "a large amount of specialty petroleum products" with "limited civilian application in Syria". The other two, Maxima Middle East Trading and Morgan Additives Manufacturing Co, and their owners Wael Abdulkarim and Ahmad Barqawi, were said to have "engaged in deceptive measures" to supply oil products to Syria.[115]

Mossack Fonseca also ran six businesses for Rami Makhlouf, cousin of the former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite US sanctions against him.[116] Internal Mossack Fonseca documents show that in 2011 Mossack Fonseca rejected a recommendation by their own compliance team to sever ties to Mr. Makhlouf. They agreed to do so only months later. The firm has said it never knowingly allowed anyone connected with rogue regimes to use its companies.[114]

Frederik Obermaier, co-author of the Panama Papers story and an investigative reporter at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, told Democracy Now: "Mossack Fonseca realised that Makhlouf was the cousin, and they realised that he was sanctioned, and they realised that he's allegedly one of the financiers of the Syrian regime. And they said, 'Oh, there is this bank who still does business with him, so we should still keep with him, as well'."[117]

HSBC also appeared to reassure Mossack Fonseca not only that it was "comfortable" with Makhlouf as a client but suggested there could be a rapprochement with the Assad family by the US. Makhlouf is already known to be a long-standing client of HSBC's Swiss private bank, holding at least $15 million with it in multiple accounts in 2006.[118] The Panamanian files also show HSBC provided financial services to a Makhlouf company called Drex Technologies, which HSBC said was a company of "good standing".[118]

DCB Finance, a Virgin Islands-based shell company founded by North Korean banker Kim Chol-sam[119] and British banker Nigel Cowie,[120] also ignored international sanctions and continued to do business with North Korea with the help of the Panamanian firm. The US Treasury Department in 2013 called DCB Finance a front company for Daedong Credit Bank and announced sanctions against both companies for providing banking services to North Korean arms dealer Korea Mining and Development Trading Corporation,[119] attempting to evade sanctions against that country, and helping to sell arms and expand North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. Cowie said the holding company was used for legitimate business and he was not aware of illicit transactions.[120]

Mossack Fonseca, required by international banking standards to avoid money laundering or fraudster clients, is, like all banks, supposed to be particularly alert for signs of corruption with politically exposed persons (PEP), in other words, clients who either are or have close ties to government officials. However they somehow failed to turn up any red flags concerning Tareq Abbas even though he shares a family name with the president of Palestine, and sat on the board of directors of a company with four fellow directors the firm did deem PEP because of their ties to Palestinian politics. Yet Mossack Fonseca actually did and documented due diligence research, including a Google search.[121]

Clients of Mossack Fonseca

Mossack Fonseca has managed more than 300,000 companies over the years.[111] The number of active companies peaked at more than 80,000 in 2009. Over 210,000 companies in twenty-one jurisdictions figure in the leaks. More than half were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with others in Panama, the Bahamas, the Seychelles, Niue, and Samoa. Mossack Fonseca's clients came from more than 100 countries. Most of the corporate clients were from Hong Kong, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Panama, and Cyprus. Mossack Fonseca worked with more than 14,000 banks, law firms, incorporators, and others to set up companies, foundations, and trusts for their clients.[122] Some 3,100 companies listed in the database appear to have ties to US offshore specialists, and 3,500 shareholders of offshore companies list US addresses.[123] Mossack Fonseca has offices in Nevada and Wyoming.[124]

The leaked documents indicate that about US$2 trillion has passed through the firm's hands.[125] Several of the holding companies that appear in the documents did business with sanctioned entities, such as arms merchants and relatives of dictators, during the time that the sanctions were in place. The firm provided services to a Seychelles company named Pangates International, which the US government believes supplied aviation fuel to the Syrian government during the then current civil war, and continued to handle its paperwork and certify it as a company in good standing, despite sanctions, until August 2015.[116]

More than 500 banks registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with Mossack Fonseca, with HSBC and its affiliates accounting for more than 2,300 of the total. Dexia and J. Safra Sarasin of Luxembourg, Credit Suisse from the Channel Islands and the Swiss UBS each requested at least 500 offshore companies for their clients.[122] An HSBC spokesman said, "The allegations are historical, in some cases dating back 20 years, predating our significant, well-publicized reforms implemented over the last few years."[126]

Responses by Mossack Fonseca

In response to queries from the Miami Herald and ICIJ, Mossack Fonseca issued a 2,900-word statement listing legal requirements that prevent using offshore companies for tax avoidance and total anonymity, such as FATF protocols which require identifying ultimate beneficial owners of all companies (including offshore companies) before opening any account or transacting any business.

The Miami Herald printed the statement with an editor's note that said the statement "did not address any of the specific due diligence failings uncovered by reporters".[127]

On Monday, April 4, Mossack Fonseca released another statement:

"The facts are these: while we may have been the victim of a data breach, nothing we've seen in this illegally obtained cache of documents suggests we've done anything illegal, and that's very much in keeping with the global reputation we've built over the past 40 years of doing business the right way."

Co-founder Ramón Fonseca Mora told CNN that the reports were false, full of inaccuracies and that parties "in many of the circumstances" cited by the ICIJ "are not and have never been clients of Mossack Fonseca". The firm provided longer statements to ICIJ.[128]

In its official statement April 6,[129] Mossack Fonseca suggested that responsibility for any legal violations might lie with other institutions:

"approximately 90% of our clientele is comprisedof [sic] professional clients ... who act as intermediaries and are regulated in the jurisdiction of their business. These clients are obliged to perform due diligence on their clients in accordance with the KYC and AML regulations to which they are subject."

In an interview with Bloomberg, Jürgen Mossack said: "The cat's out of the bag, so now we have to deal with the aftermath."[130]

He said the leak was not an "inside job"—the company had been hacked by servers based abroad. It filed a complaint with the Panamanian attorney general's office.[131]

On April 7, 2016, Mossack resigned from Panama's Council on Foreign Relations (Conarex),[132][133] even though he was not officially serving at the time.[134] His brother Peter Mossack still serves as honorary Consul of Panama, as he has since 2010.[135][136][137][138]

On May 5, 2016, Mossack Fonseca sent a cease and desist letter to the ICIJ in an attempt to stop the ICIJ from releasing the leaked documents from the Panama Papers scandal.[139] Despite this, the ICIJ released the leaked documents on May 9, 2016.[140][141]

In March 2018, Mossack Fonseca announced it would close down due to "irreversible damage" to their image caused by the Panama Papers scandal.[142]

In October 2019, The Laundromat, a movie based on the events of the Panama Papers was released on the streaming service Netflix. Prior to this, Mossack and Fonseca issued a lawsuit[143] in aim of preventing the release, citing defamation and potential damage to their rights of a fair trial by jury, should one begin.[144] On July 17, 2019, the judge, based in Connecticut, refused the injunction citing lack of jurisdiction, and ordered the case be transferred to Los Angeles, California.[145][143]

Responses in Panama

At 5:00 am on April 3, as the news first broke, Ramón Fonseca Mora told television channel TVN he "was not responsible nor had he been accused in any tribunal".[146]

He said the firm was the victim of a hack and that he had no responsibility for what clients did with the offshore companies that they purchased from Mossack Fonseca, which were legal under Panamanian law.[146] Later that day, the Independent Movement (MOVIN) called for calm, and expressed hope that the Panamanian justice system would not allow the culprits to go with impunity.[146]

Public officials

By April 8, the government understood that media reports were addressing tax evasion and not attacking Panama. The then-president Varela met on Wednesday, April 7, with CANDIF, a committee of representatives from different sectors of the Panamanian economy which includes the Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Industry and Agriculture, the National Lawyers Association, the International Lawyers Association, the Banking Association and the Stock Exchange, and entered full crisis management mode.[148] On the same day, he announced the creation of a new judiciary tribunal and a high-level commission led by Nobel Prize Laureate Joseph Stiglitz. There were accusations that foreign forces were attacking Panama because of Panama's "stable and robust economy".[149]

Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, then-Vice President of Panama, said in an op-ed piece published April 21 in The Guardian that then-President Juan Carlos Varela and his administration have strengthened Panama's controls over money laundering in the twenty months they had been in power, and that "Panama is setting up an independent commission, co-chaired by the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, to evaluate our financial system, determine best practices, and recommend measures to strengthen global financial and legal transparency. We expect its findings within the next six months, and will share the results with the international community."[150]

However, in early August 2016, Stiglitz resigned from the committee because he learned that the Panamanian government would not commit to making their final report public. He said that he had always "assumed" that the final report would be transparent.[151]

On April 8, then-President Varela denounced France's proposal to return Panama to a list of countries that did not cooperate with information exchange.[152] Minister of the Presidency Alvaro Alemán categorically denied that Panama is a tax haven, and said the country would not be a scapegoat.[153] Alemán said that talks with the French ambassador to Panama had begun.[153]

On April 25, a meeting of the Panamanian and French finance ministers resulted in an agreement under which Panama would provide information to France about French nationals with taxable assets in the country.[154][155]

The Minister of Economy and Finance of Panama, Dulcidio de la Guardia, formerly an offshore specialist at Mossack Fonseca competitor Morgan & Morgan, said the legal but often "murky" niche of establishing offshore accounts, firms and trusts make up "less than half a percentage point" of Panama's GDP. He appeared to suggest that the publication of the papers was an attack on Panama because of the high level of economic growth that the country had shown.[157]

Eduardo Morgan of the Panamanian firm Morgan & Morgan accused the OECD of starting the scandal to avoid competition from Panama with the interests of other countries.[158] The Panama Papers affect the image of Panama in an unfair manner and have come to light not as the result of an investigation, but of a hack, said Adolfo Linares, president of the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama (Cciap).[159]

The Colegio Nacional de Abogados de Panama (CNA) urged the government to sue.[160] Political analyst Mario Rognoni said that the world perceives Panama as a tax haven. The government of then-President Juan Carlos Varela might become implicated if he tries to cover up for those involved, Rognoni said.[161]

Economist Rolando Gordon said the affair hurts Panama, which has just emerged from the greylist of the FATF, and added that each country, especially Panama, must conduct investigations and determine whether illegal or improper acts were committed.[162]

Panama's Lawyers Movement called the Panama Papers leak "cyber bullying" and in a press conference condemned it as an attack on the 'Panama' brand. Fraguela Alfonso, its president, called it a direct attack on the country's financial system.

"I invite all organized forces of the country to create a great crusade for the rescue of the country's image."

The law firm Rubio, Álvarez, Solís & Abrego also reacted and in a press release said that "In recent decades Panama has been in the most important financial and service centers of Latin America and the entire world. As a result, all kinds of attacks on our service system have been attempted."[163]

On October 19, 2016, it became known that a government executive had spent 370 million US dollars in order to "clean" the country's image.[164]

Law enforcement

On April 4, 2016, the Attorney General's office announced that it would investigate Mossack Fonseca and the Panama papers.[165] On April 12, the newly formed Second Specialized Prosecutor against Organized Crime searched the Panama City and Bella Vista offices of Mossack Fonseca for 27 hours.[166] Following the search, the Attorney General's office stated that the purpose of the search was "to obtain documents relevant to the information published in news articles that establishes the possible use of the law firm in illegal activities".[167] The search ended without measures against the law firm.[168] On April 22 the same unit searched another Panama location and "secured a large amount of evidence".[166]

The Municipality of Regulation and Supervision of Financial Subjects initiated a review of Mossack Fonseca to determine whether it had followed tax law, specifically due diligence, customer knowledge, disclosure of the final beneficiary, and the reporting of suspicious transactions to Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) operations. Some firms had been monitored since late 2015, with special attention after the publication of the Panama Papers. Violation of Panamanian law carries penalties of $5,000 to $1 million or even suspension of the firm.[169]

The ICIJ investigation of Mossack Fonseca was reported to the Public Ministry. Samid Dan Sandoval, former candidate for mayor of Santiago de Veraguas (2014), filed legal action against the journalists and all those who had participated. He said the project name damaged the integrity, dignity and sovereignty of the country and that the consortium would have to assume legal responsibility for all damage caused to the Panamanian nation.[170] A Change.org petition also requested the ICIJ stop using the name of Panama as in the Panama Papers. The request said the generally accepted name for the investigation "damage(d) the image" of Panama.[171]

Attorney General of Panama Kenia Isolda Porcell Diaz announced on January 24, 2017, that she was suspending the investigations against Mossack Fonseca because it filed an appeal for protection of constitutional rights before the First Superior Court of Justice of Panama and requested that he deliver all the original documents to issue a judgment.[172][173][174]

Mossack and Fonseca were detained on February 8, 2017, on money-laundering charges.[175] They were initially refused bail because the court saw a flight risk,[176] but were released on April 21, 2017 after a judge ruled they had cooperated with the investigation and ordered them each to pay $500,000 in bail.[177][178]

On June 28, 2024 Judge Baloísa Marquínez acquitted the 28 accused individuals. She explained that the evidence brought against Mossack and Fonseca was insufficient and the chain of evidence was not comprehensible.[179]

Allegations, reactions, and investigations

Europe

Asia

North America

South America

Africa

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki, head of the African Union's panel on illicit financial flows, on April 9, 2016 called the leak "most welcome" and called on African nations to investigate the citizens of their nations who appear in the papers. His panel's 2015 report[180] found that Africa loses $50 billion a year due to tax evasion and other illicit practices and its 50-year losses top a trillion dollars. Furthermore, he said, the Seychelles, an African nation, is the fourth most mentioned tax haven in the documents.[181]

Oceania

Australia

On April 22, 2016, Australia said it would create a public register showing the beneficial, or actual, owners of shell companies, as part of an effort to stamp out tax avoidance by multinational corporations.[182]

The Australian Taxation Office has announced that it is investigating 800 individual Australian taxpayers on the Mossack Fonseca list of clients and that some of the cases may be referred to the country's Serious Financial Crime Task Force.[183] Eighty names match to an organized crime intelligence database.[184]

Leaked documents examined by the ABC "pierced the veil of anonymous shell companies" and linked a Sydney businessman and a Brisbane geologist to mining deals in North Korea.[185] "Rather than applying sanctions, the Australian Government and the ASX seem to have allowed a coach and horses to be ridden through them by the people involved in forming this relationship, corporate relationship with one of the primary arms manufacturers in North Korea," said Thomas Clark of the University of Technology Sydney.[185]

David Sutton was director of AAT Corporation and EHG Corporation when they held mineral licenses in North Korea and did business with Korean Natural Resources Development and Investment Corporation, which is under United Nations sanctions, and North Korea's "primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, responsible for approximately half of the arms exported by North Korea."[185] The geologist, Louis Schurmann, said British billionaire Kevin Leech was key to putting the deal together.[185] Leaked documents also reveal the involvement of another Briton, Gibraltar-based John Lister.[185] According to ABC, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was aware of these mining deals, which had also been brought up in the Australian Senate, but nobody ever referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police.[185]

On May 12, 2016, the names of former Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull, and former Premier of New South Wales Neville Wran, were both found in the Panama Papers, due to the pair's former directorship of the Mossack Fonseca-incorporated company Star Technology Systems Limited. Turnbull and Wran resigned from these positions in 1995, and the Prime Minister has denied any impropriety, stating "had [Star Technology] made any profits—which it did not regrettably—it certainly would have paid tax in Australia."[186]

Cook Islands

Media initially reported that the Panama Papers lists 500 entities created under the jurisdiction of the Cook Islands, population 10,000, almost as many as Singapore, whose population is 5.7 million. After the Winebox affair, the Cook Islands gave New Zealand jurisdiction over tax matters.[187]

New Zealand

New Zealand's Inland Revenue Department said that they were working to obtain details of people who had tax residence in the country who might have been involved in arrangements facilitated by Mossack Fonseca.[188] Gerard Ryle, director of the ICIJ, told Radio New Zealand on April 8, 2016, that New Zealand is a well-known tax haven and a "nice front for criminals".[189] New Zealand provides overseas investors with foreign trusts and look-through companies. New Zealand government policy is not to request disclosure of the identity of either the settlor or the beneficiaries of the trust, making the ownership secret, as well as concealing the assets from the trust-holder's home jurisdictions. These trusts are not taxed in New Zealand. These trusts can then be used to acquire and own New Zealand registered companies, which become a vehicle by which the trust owners can exercise day-to-day control over their assets. These New Zealand-registered companies can be designed not to make a profit using loans from tax havens and other profit-shifting techniques: the result being tax free income with the general respectability that has typically been associated with companies registered in New Zealand.

Prime Minister John Key responded on May 7 to John Doe's remark that he had been "curiously quiet" about tax evasion in the Cook Islands by saying that the whistleblower was confused and probably European. While the Cook Islands use New Zealand currency, "I have as much responsibility for tax in the Cook Islands as I do for taxing Russia." New Zealand does represent the Cook Islands on defence and foreign policy, but not taxation, he said.[190]

In distancing New Zealand from the Cook Islands, Key ignored the close ties between the two countries and the crucial role New Zealand had in setting up the Cook Island taxation system.[191]

Niue

Mossack Fonseca approached Niue in 1996 and offered to help set up a tax haven on the tiny South Sea island. The law firm drafted the necessary legislation, permitting offshore companies to operate in total secrecy. They took care of all the paperwork, the island got a modest fee for each filing, and it seemed like quite a deal, even if they were required by law now to provide all banking paperwork in Russian and Chinese as well as English.[192]

Soon the filings almost covered the island's year budget. The US government however made official noises in 2001 about laundering criminal proceeds and Chase Bank blacklisted the island and Bank of New York followed suit. This caused inconvenience to the population so they let their contract with Mossack Fonseca expire and many of the privacy-seekers on the banking world moved on.[192] Some did stay however, apparently; the Panama Papers database lists nearly 10,000 companies and trusts set up on Niue, population 1200.

Samoa

Many recently created shell companies were set up in Samoa, perhaps after Niue revised its tax laws. The Panama Papers database lists more than 13,000 companies and trusts set up there. Samoa has a population of roughly 200,000.[193]

Australia

Cook Islands

New Zealand

In distancing New Zealand from the Cook Islands, Key ignored the close ties between the two countries and the crucial role New Zealand had in setting up the Cook Island taxation system.[191]

Niue

Samoa

International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) investigation

On May 27, 2015, the US Department of Justice indicted a number of companies and individuals for conspiracy, corruption and racketeering in connection with bribes and kickbacks paid to obtain media and marketing rights for FIFA tournaments. Some immediately entered guilty pleas.[194]

Among those indicted were Jeffrey Webb and Jack Warner, the current and former presidents of CONCACAF, the continental confederation under FIFA headquartered in the United States. They were charged with racketeering and bribery offenses. Others were US and South American sports marketing executives who paid and agreed to pay well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks.[194]

On December 12, 2014, José Hawilla, the owner and founder of the Traffic Group, the Brazilian sports marketing conglomerate, waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a four-count information charging him with racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Hawilla also agreed to forfeit over $151 million, $25 million of which was paid at the time of his plea.[194]

Torneos & Traffic (T&T) is a subsidiary of Fox International Channels since 2005[195] (with investments since 2002) and is the same company involved in corrupt practices in the acquisition of rights to major South American soccer tournaments.[196][197]

Many individuals mentioned in the Panama Papers are connected with the world governing body of association football, FIFA, including the former president of CONMEBOL Eugenio Figueredo; former President of UEFA Michel Platini;[198] former secretary general of FIFA Jérôme Valcke;[198] Argentine player for Barcelona Lionel Messi; and, from Italy, the head manager of Metro, Antonio Guglielmi.

The leak also revealed an extensive conflict of interest between a member of the FIFA Ethics Committee and former FIFA vice president Eugenio Figueredo. Swiss police searched the offices of UEFA, European football's governing body, after the naming of former secretary-general Gianni Infantino as president of FIFA. He had signed a television deal while he was at UEFA with a company called Cross Trading, which the FBI has since accused of bribery. The contract emerged among the leaked documents. Infantino has denied wrongdoing.[199]

External links

Searchable full-text database of Panama Papers and related leaks
A manifest by Panama Papers leaker
Panama Papers Portal of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (US)
Panama Papers Portal of Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
Panama Papers Portal of The Guardian (United Kingdom)
Panama Papers Portal of Financial Times (United Kingdom)
Panama Papers Portal of Le Monde (France)
Panama Papers Portal of Sveriges Television (Sweden)
Portal of the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) (Africa)
Panama Papers Portal of Inkyfada (Tunisia)
Panama Papers Portal of Semanario Universidad at the University of Costa Rica
Panama Papers Portal of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
Panama Papers Portal of Le Desk (Morocco)
Panama Papers Portal of Reykjavík Media (Iceland)
Panama Papers Portal of Armando.info (Venezuela)
New Zealand IR607:Foreign trust disclosure

References

About the Panama Papers Investigations International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, January 31, 2018, retrieved July 17, 2020^
Giant leak of offshore financial records exposes global array of crime and corruption OCCRP, April 3, 2016^
Michael S. Schmidt, Steven Lee Myers. Panama Law Firm's Leaked Files Detail Offshore Accounts Tied to World Leaders The New York Times, April 3, 2016, retrieved March 25, 2017^
"Помогут ли "Панамские документы" расставанию россиян с иллюзиями": СМИ обсуждают последствия "Офшоргейта" для РФ newsru.com, April 5, 2016, retrieved November 17, 2020^
"Вашего покорного слуги там нет": Путин прокомментировал "Панамские документы" newsru.com, April 7, 2016, retrieved November 17, 2020^
James O'Donovan, Hannes F Wagner, Stefan Zeume. The Value of Offshore Secrets: Evidence from the Panama Papers The Review of Financial Studies, February 11, 2019^
Natalya Vasilyeva, Mae Anderson. News Group Claims Huge Trove of Data on Offshore Accounts The New York Times, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Will Kenton. What Are the Panama Papers? Investopedia, retrieved June 8, 2020^
ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database International Coalition of Investigative Journalists, retrieved February 12, 2023^
International Consortium of Investigative journalists. A new ICIJ investigation exposes a rogue offshore industry April 3, 2016, retrieved May 12, 2016^
Paul Murphy, Sam Jones, Helen Warrell. From payments to armaments: the double life of Wirecard's Jan Marsalek Financial Times, July 10, 2020, retrieved July 19, 2020^
Will Fitzgibbon, FROM FRONT PAGES TO PRISON TIME: BEHIND THE SCENES OF A PANAMA PAPERS CRIMINAL CASE icij.org, 3 April 2021, retrieved August 19, 2022^
Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption The Panama Papers, April 3, 2016, retrieved May 8, 2016^
Nicola Clark. How a Cryptic Message, 'Interested in Data?,' Led to the Panama Papers The New York Times, April 5, 2016, retrieved August 12, 2016^
How two German newspaper reporters broke the story behind the Panama Papers July 12, 2016, retrieved August 12, 2016^
Juliette Garside. Panama Papers: inside the Guardian's investigation into offshore secrets The Guardian, April 16, 2016, retrieved May 6, 2016^
Scott Shane, Eric Lipton. Panama Papers Source Offers to Aid Inquiries if Exempt From Punishment The New York Times, May 6, 2016, retrieved August 14, 2021^
Ivana Kottasova. Panama Papers' 'John Doe' says inequality concerns drove leak CNNMoney, May 6, 2016, retrieved August 14, 2021^
Panama Papers: Source breaks silence on Mossack Fonseca leaks BBC News, May 6, 2016, retrieved May 6, 2016^
Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come ICIJ, May 6, 2016, retrieved May 8, 2016^
DocumentCloud 150 Results Source: Internal documents from Mossack Fonseca (Panama) DocumentCloud, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., retrieved May 18, 2016^
Panama Papers: the scandal that damaged the image of a country www.panamatoday.com, retrieved December 6, 2018^
Sources using the term "Mossack Fonseca papers": Joshua Robertson, Paul Farrell. How a Hong Kong corruption scandal sparked strife at Mossack Fonseca The Guardian, April 4, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016 Modigliani work sequestered as Mossack Fonseca papers reveal disputed owners The Irish Times, April 11, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016 Two INM board members linked with Panama papers Raidió Teilifís Éireann, April 19, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016^
Mining loses its sparkle for billionaire as town – and Tiffany – revolt The Independent, November 24, 2015, retrieved August 14, 2021^
Sierra Leone's flawed diamond trade April 26, 2016, retrieved April 27, 2016^
Martha M. Hamilton. Cartel-Linked Suspects Arrested After Panama Papers Revelations Panama Papers, April 25, 2016, retrieved April 30, 2016^
" Panama papers " et sociétés offshore : sur la piste des fonds de Karim Wade ? (Exclusif) Ouestaf.com, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 30, 2016^
The Secret Dealings of Swiss Lawyer Dieter Neupert Al Bawaba, January 5, 2017, retrieved June 19, 2017^
The Panama Papers: 7 things to know CNN, April 4, 2016, retrieved October 24, 2021^
Libby Nelson. How the Panama Papers brought down Iceland's prime minister Vox, 2016-04-05, retrieved 2024-10-07^
Salimah Shivji. Panama Papers: Quebec lawyer based in Dubai linked to Mossack Fonseca CBC News, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 20, 2016^
Kerry A. Dolan. Billionaires From Brazil And Mexico Named In The Panama Papers Leak Forbes, April 14, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
From Kubrick to Cowell: Panama Papers expose offshore dealings of the stars The Guardian, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
Leah McGrath Goodman. PANAMA PAPERS: WHAT STANLEY KUBRICK CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT TAX SHELTERS Newsweek, April 15, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
Yasuo Awai. A third of Panama Papers shell companies set up from Hong Kong, China Nikkei Asian Review, April 23, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
Les Africains du Panama (1): les circuits offshore des 'fils de' Le Monde, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 30, 2016^
London law firm helped Azerbaijan's first family set up secret offshore firm: Panama Papers shine light on hidden property portfolio of President Aliyev's daughters The Guardian, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 19, 2016^
L'encombrant bras droit d'Ali Bongo LE MONDE, September 15, 2015, retrieved May 1, 2016^
Places in the sun: a special report on offshore finance The Economist, February 24, 2007, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Ahmed Zoromé. Concept of Offshore Financial Centers: In Search of an Operational Definition International Monetary Fund, April 1, 2007, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Patricia Cohen. Wealth inequality rising fast, Oxfam says, faulting tax havens Boston Globe, January 19, 2016, retrieved April 17, 2016^
Tabu Butagira. Leaked emails expose Heritage plot to dodge Uganda tax ANCIR^
Property cash buyers at record high, Nationwide says BBC News, June 3, 2015, retrieved April 19, 2016^
House prices hit record high as UK housing crisis worsens: London prices have shot up almost 50 per cent, or £195,420, since the last election in May 2010 The Independent, April 20, 2015, retrieved April 19, 2016^
Judith Evans. How laundered money shapes London's property market Financial Times, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Vancouver foreign ownership research prompts cries of racism in hot housing market CBC News, November 2, 2015, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Greg Rasmussen. Premier Clark was asked the wrong question on foreign ownership of housing: The B.C. government needs to find out exactly how much foreign cash flows into BC real estate CBC News, May 14, 2015, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Kathy Tomlinson. Canadian banks helping clients bend rules to move money out of China Globe and Mail, September 8, 2016, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Jason Proctor. Chinese bank claims fugitive bought luxury B.C. real estate: B.C. Supreme Court order freezes Shibiao Yan's assets while bank tries to get back $10 million loan June 27, 2016^
Panama Papers: Tax avoidance issue to be taken up at G20 Leaders' Summit Indian Express, April 14, 2016, retrieved April 18, 2016^
Panama papers: Panama, Vanuatu et Liban sont menacés de figurer sur la liste noire des paradis fiscaux Le Monde, April 16, 2016, retrieved April 18, 2016^
Sociedades offshore El Siglo, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
La entrevista sobre "Panama Papers" que puso contra las cuerdas al presidente Varela October 22, 2016, retrieved October 23, 2016^
Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Jörg Schmitt. Panama Papers: Haftbefehle gegen Mossack-Fonseca-Gründer Süddeutsche.de, October 19, 2020, retrieved October 24, 2020^
Hans Leyendecker, Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Vanessa Wormer. Panama Papers: The Firm Süddeutsche Zeitung, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Morgan Harari, Markus Meinzer, Richard Murphy. Financial Secrecy, Banks and the Big 4 Firms of Accountants Tax Justice Network, October 1, 2012, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Miami's luxury real estate boom connected to Panama Papers Orlando Weekly, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Locked out of boom, buyers hunt for new housing hot spots Miami Herald, September 18, 2015, retrieved April 19, 2016^
Kyle Munzenrieder. Feds Will Track How Much of Miami's Real-Estate Boom Is Being Fueled by Money Laundering Miami New Times, January 13, 2016, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Nicholas Nehemas. How secret offshore money helps fuel Miami's luxury real-estate boom Miami Herald, April 3, 2016, retrieved October 1, 2017^
Ken Silverstein. Miami: Where Luxury Real Estate Meets Dirty Money October 2, 2013, retrieved May 22, 2023^
Dana Anderson. Share of Homes Bought With All Cash Hits Highest Level Since 2014 www.redfin.com, December 21, 2022, retrieved May 22, 2023^
Panama Papers: Vladimir Putin associates, Jackie Chan identified in unprecedented leak of offshore financial records ABC News online, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 18, 2016^
Richard Bilton. Panama Papers: How a British man, 90, covered for a US millionaire BBC News, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Douglas Dalby, Amy Wilson-Chapman. Panama Papers helps recover more than $1.2 billion around the world ICIJ, April 3, 2019, retrieved August 19, 2022^
Oliver Zihlmann, Christian Brönnimann. Versteckte Gelder enthüllt: Was hats gebracht? Basler Zeitung, April 3, 2019, retrieved January 16, 2025^
Panama Papers Q&A: What is the scandal about? April 6, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Andy Greenberg. How Reporters Pulled Off the Panama Papers, the Biggest Leak in Whistleblower History Wired, Condé Nast, April 16, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Panama Papers: Why 'John Doe' risked their life for the Mossack Fonseca leak Australian Broadcasting Commission, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
We are the investigative journalists who worked on the Panama Papers AMA! April 19, 2016, retrieved April 19, 2016^
All you need to know about the Panama Papers Süddeutsche Zeitung, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Mick Krever. How nail polish helped keep the 'Panama Papers' secret April 12, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Süddeutsche Zeitung. All you need to know about the Panama Papers Süddeutsche.de, retrieved April 5, 2016^
From Encrypted Drives To Amazon's Cloud – The Amazing Flight of the Panama Papers Forbes^
Gräv - ICIJ\x27s Platforms \x26 Tools^
Panama Papers: How Nuix Helped Uncover the Facts Nuix, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Faculty: David P. Weber University of Maryland, retrieved April 18, 2016^
Lizzie Dearden. Everything you need to know about the Panama Papers The Independent, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Marina W. Guevara. Coming Soon: ICIJ to Release Panama Papers Offshore Companies Data panamapapers.icij.org, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, April 26, 2016, retrieved April 30, 2016^
Piden no publicar Panama Papers April 6, 2016, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Steffen Kraft. Leck bei Wikileaks Der Freitag, August 25, 2011, retrieved March 7, 2012^
Panama-Papers: Kanzlei Mossack Fonesca erstattet Anzeige DiePresse.com, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 8, 2016^
James Sanders. No. 1 thing IT departments can learn from the Panama Papers hack: Staggeringly out of date software supports the conclusion that documents from Mossack Fonseca were exfiltrated by a hacker. Learn what vulnerabilities could have been used. TechRepublic, April 13, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
Cybersecurity Lessons Learned From 'Panama Papers' Breach Forbes, April 21, 2016, retrieved May 8, 2016^
Mark Maunder. Did an Out of Date WordPress Plugin Expose Mossack Fonseca to Hacks? Wordfence, April 7, 2016^
Slider Revolution Plugin Critical Vulnerability Being Exploited Sucuri Blog, September 3, 2014, retrieved May 15, 2016^
Ali Razaa. SQL injection bug found in Panama Papers Law Firm Mossack Fonseca HackRead, April 12, 2016, retrieved May 8, 2016^
Industrial Control Cyber Security Nuclear May 2016, retrieved November 3, 2017^
Kubecka, Chris. Down the Rabbit Hole: An OSINT Journey HypaSec, 2017^
Richard Bilton. Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens BBC News, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Edward Snowden. Biggest leak in the history of data journalism just went live, and it's about corruption Twitter, retrieved April 3, 2016^
A new ICIJ Investigation Exposes a Rogue Offshore Industry International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Center for Public Integrity, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 27, 2016^
Micah White. The Panama Papers: leaktivism's coming of age The Guardian, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Panama Papers: WikiLeaks calls for data leak to be released in full The Belfast Telegraph, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Lewis Sanders IV. WikiLeaks slams 'Panama Papers' trickle-down strategy Deutsche Welle, April 7, 2016, retrieved August 19, 2022^
Daphne's death affected me deeply – secret source behind Panama Papers leak July 22, 2022, retrieved October 18, 2022^
Panama Papers: The Power Players International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Mauricio Macri aparece como director una segunda empresa offshore Perfil.com, retrieved May 1, 2020^
Macri offshore: aparece una segunda empresa del presidente en Panamá Perfil.com, retrieved May 1, 2020^
Former Sudanese President cited as 'Power Player' in Panama Papers Dabanga, April 4, 2016, retrieved May 14, 2016^
Adam Lusher. Panama Papers: 12 world leaders linked to offshore dealings – and the full allegations against them The Independent, April 4, 2016, retrieved May 14, 2016^
OFFSHORE COMPANY SPENT 3 YEARS CHASING IVANISHVILI'S PASSPORT OCCRP, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 30, 2016^
Dominic Dudley. Panama Papers: The Middle East Players Forbes, April 4, 2016, retrieved May 14, 2016^
Rise.md: #PanamaPapers. Conexiunile offshore ale lui Ion Sturza. Proiectul de investigatie globala il are in vizor si pe fostul premier Pro TV Chișinău, April 4, 2016^
Jack Moore. PANAMA PAPERS: WHO IS IMPLICATED FROM THE MIDDLE EAST? Newsweek, April 4, 2016, retrieved May 14, 2016^
Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption Panama Papers, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, April 3, 2016^
The Power Players: Clive Khulubuse Zuma ICIJ, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Tom Morgan. Panama Papers: Sarah Ferguson, Simon Cowell and Heather Mills among celebrities named in leak ProTV, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Simon Bowers. How Mossack Fonseca helped hide millions from Britain's biggest gold bullion robbery The Guardian, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Jackie Chan, involucrado en escándalo "Panama Papers" El Siglo, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Luke Harding. The Panama Papers: what you need to know The Guardian, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Panama Papers and Mossack Fonseca explained Australian Broadcasting CORP, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Usman W. Chohan. The Panama Papers and Tax Morality April 6, 2016^
A torrential leak The Economist, April 9, 2016, retrieved August 19, 2022^
Salimah Shivji. Panama Papers: Quebec lawyer based pin Dubai linked to Mossack Fonseca: Helene Mathieu Legal Consultants worked to incorporate 3 companies that now face economic sanctions CBC News, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 20, 2016^
Simon Cox. Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca 'helped firms subject to sanctions' BBC, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Panama Papers: World Leaders from Iceland to Argentina Exposed in Massive Tax Evasion Scheme Democracy Now!, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
Nick Goodway. Panama scandal grows for HSBC over Syria links Evening Standard, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
US Department of the Treasury. Treasury Sanctions Bank, Front Company, and Official Linked to North Korean Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs: Action Targets North Korea's Use of Deceptive Financial Practices to Support its Weapons Programs June 27, 2013, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Juliette Garside, Luke Harding. British banker set up firm 'used by North Korea to sell weapons' The Guardian, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Uri Blau, Daniel Dolev. Panama Papers: Leaks Reveal Abbas' Son's $1m Holding in Company With Ties to Palestinian Authority Haaretz.com, April 7, 2016^
The Panama Papers Numbers panamapapers.icij.org, retrieved April 4, 2016^
Kevin G. Hall, Marisa Taylor. Americans, including a Bellevue man, show up in Panama Papers The Seattle Times, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
US scolds others about offshores, but looks other way at home Kansas City Star, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Irving Delgado Nay. MP investigará a Mossack Fonseca El Siglo, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Credit Suisse, HSBC dismiss 'Panama Papers' tax avoidance allegations Reuters, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Miami Herald staff. Mossack Fonseca responds to Miami Herald 'Secret Shell Game' series on offshore companies The Miami Herald, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
The Panama Papers: 7 things to know CNN, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Statement Regarding Recent Media Coverage Mossack Fonseca, retrieved April 8, 2016^
Blake Schmidt. A Conversation With Panama's Suddenly Notorious Offshore Lawyers Bloomberg, April 4, 2016^
Panama Papers: Leak firm Mossack Fonseca 'victim of hack' BBC News, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
The Latest: Venezuela to Probe Citizens in 'Panama Papers' The New York Times, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Guadalupe León. Jürgen Mossack renunció al Consejo Nacional de Relaciones Exteriores La Estrella de Panamá, April 7, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Vicepresidente y Canciller Varela se reúne con el Consejo Nacional de Relaciones Exteriores retrieved April 7, 2016^
DEPARTAMENTO CONSULAR DE LA DGPE MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES GUIA CONSULAR (actualizada al 6 de abril 2016) MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Panama, retrieved April 7, 2016^
DEPARTAMENTO CONSULAR DE LA DGPE MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES GUIA CONSULAR (AGOSTO 2013) MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Panama, retrieved April 7, 2016^
DEPARTAMENTO CONSULAR DE LA DGPE MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES GUIA CONSULAR (Febrero 2011) MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Panama, retrieved April 7, 2016^
DEPARTAMENTO CONSULAR DE LA DGPE MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES GUIA CONSULAR (Oct 2010) MINISTERIO DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Panama, retrieved April 8, 2016^
Piden no publicar Panama Papers El Siglo, May 6, 2016, retrieved April 8, 2016^
ICIJ revelará hoy 'Panamá papers' El Siglo, May 9, 2016, retrieved April 8, 2016^
ICIJ releases database revealing thousands of secret offshore companies · ICIJ icij.org, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, May 9, 2016, retrieved April 8, 2016^
Nicola Slawson. Mossack Fonseca law firm to shut down after Panama Papers tax scandal The Guardian, March 14, 2018, retrieved March 16, 2018^
Netflix's 'The Laundromat' Goes On as Court Transfers Lawsuit The New York Times, October 18, 2019, retrieved October 20, 2019^
Panama Papers law firm founders 'investigated by the FBI' International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJ, October 16, 2019, retrieved October 20, 2019^
Gene Maddaus. Court Refuses to Block Netflix Release of 'The Laundromat' Variety, October 18, 2019, retrieved October 20, 2019^
Exclusiva: 'No soy responsable ni he sido acusado en un tribunal', Fonseca Mora TVN, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Civil Society www.againstcorruption.eu^
Panama Launches Crisis Talks in Wake of Tax Haven Leaks www.bna.com, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Nimay González. "Nos atacan porque Panamá tiene condiciones favorables para inversionistas", Estrada Telemetro, April 14, 2016, retrieved January 11, 2020^
Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado. Don't blame Panama for the Panama Papers The Guardian, April 21, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2006^
Panama Papers Commission 'Will Have No Credibility,' Former Chair Joseph Stiglitz Says ABC News, August 9, 2016, retrieved August 19, 2022^
Panama threatens France over 'papers' blacklist RFI, April 13, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Panamá se defiende y califica de 'irrespetuosas' declaraciones de la OCDE April 5, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Panama's finance minister faces French counterpart in Paris over tax spat Reuters, April 25, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Panamá y Francia pactan contra evasión La Estrella de Panamá, April 26, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Renuncias en el exterior y en Panamá no pasa nada April 16, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016^
Jude Webber. Panamanians pained by corruption claims Financial Times, April 7, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Eduardo Morgan: "detrás de todo esto está la OCDE" April 5, 2016, retrieved April 6, 2016^
'Panama Papers', una campaña de difamación al país: Adolfo Linares April 5, 2016, retrieved April 6, 2016^
Gremio de abogados insta a Gobierno panameño demandar por daño de imagen April 6, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Panamá sale afectado El Siglo, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Repercución económica El Siglo, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Repudian ataque a imagen del país El Siglo, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 7, 2016^
Ejecutivo utiliza $370 mil para 'limpiar' imagen La Estrella de Panamá, October 19, 2016, retrieved October 19, 2016^
MP investigará a Mossack Fonseca& – El Siglo El Siglo, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 5, 2016^
Investigators raid property of 'Panama Papers' law firm Mossack Fonseca The Telegraph, April 23, 2016, retrieved April 23, 2016^
Fiscalía panameña realizó allanamiento en Mossack Fonseca April 12, 2016, retrieved April 13, 2016^
MP evita referirse al futuro de Mossack Fonseca El Siglo, April 14, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016^
MEF realiza auditoría a firma Mossack Fonseca El Siglo, April 15, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016^
ICIJ no puede ser investigado El Siglo, April 13, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016^
Elevan petición en internet para que se cambie el nombre de Panama Papers April 4, 2016, retrieved May 2, 2016^
Panamá suspenderá investigación sobre Panama Papers gestion.pe, January 24, 2017, retrieved January 25, 2017^
Panamá suspenderá investigación sobre Panama Papers – laprensalibre.cr www.laprensalibre.cr, retrieved January 25, 2017^
Panamá Papers: procuradora general anunció suspensión de investigación January 24, 2017^
Elida Moreno. Panama detains Mossack Fonseca founders on corruption charges mobile.reuters.com, February 11, 2017, retrieved November 12, 2017^
Panama Papers law firm bosses refused bail following bribery arrests The Independent, 11 February 2017, retrieved 12 May 2019^
Panama grants bail to Mossack Fonseca founders in Brazil corruption case Reuters, 22 April 2017, retrieved 5 November 2019^
Detained partners of law firm at the heart of Panama Papers scandal granted bail DW.COM, retrieved 4 November 2019^
Aus Mangel an Beweisen: Alle Angeklagten im Finanzskandal um "Panama Papers" freigesprochen tagesspiegel.de, June 29, 2024, retrieved June 29, 2024^
Illicit Financial Flows: Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Commissioned by the AU/ECA Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development retrieved April 27, 2016^
Conor Gaffey. PANAMA PAPERS: AFRICAN UNION CALLS FOR INVESTIGATIONS Newsweek, April 11, 2016, retrieved April 27, 2016^
Australia to create public register of shell company owners, in wake of Panama Papers South China Morning Post, April 22, 2016, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Neil Chenoweth. Panama Papers: ATO investigating more than 800 Australian clients of Mossack Fonseca Sydney Morning Herald, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
AAP. Senate to look further at Panama Papers tax havens: A Senate committee says multinational companies have resorted to obfuscation and contrariness to avoid explaining why they pay so little tax SBS, April 22, 2016, retrieved April 22, 2016^
Panama papers reveal evidence Australians are involved in deals with North Korea that could be in breach of sanctions 7.30, April 6, 2016, retrieved April 29, 2016^
Malcolm Turnbull denies any wrongdoing after being listed in Panama Papers ABC News, ABC News (Australia), May 11, 2016, retrieved May 12, 2016^
Simon Louisson. Panama Papers whistleblower cites Pacific isles, NZ, for good reasons The Standard, May 8, 2016, retrieved May 18, 2016^
Jane Wardell, Elida Moreno. Tax authorities begin probes into some people named in Panama Papers leak Reuters, April 4, 2016, retrieved April 4, 2016^
NZ a 'nice front' for criminals April 8, 2016, retrieved April 10, 2016^
Panama Papers whistleblower confused – John Key May 7, 2016, retrieved May 8, 2016^
Money trail leads home to New Zealand stuff.co.nz, April 6, 2013, retrieved May 15, 2016^
Michael Daly. Polynesian 'Rock' That Made Millions From Panama Papers' Crooks: How Niue, a coral outcropping with just 1,190 residents, rolled out the welcome mat for Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the massive records leak—and made a tidy profit Daily Beast, April 5, 2016, retrieved April 26, 2016^
Panama Papers: The South Pacific's role New Zealand Herald, May 10, 2016, retrieved May 14, 2016^
Nine FIFA Officials and Five Corporate Executives Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy and Corruption United States Department of Justice, May 27, 2015, retrieved April 19, 2016^
ABC Color. Conmebol renovó con mismos dueños de investigada T&T^
DirecTV, Fox Worked With FIFA Middlemen WSJ, June 7, 2015^
Larry Darrell. How DirecTV And Fox Inc Are Related To FIFA Middlemen In Corruption Scandal Bidness Etc, June 8, 2015^
Group of death: FIFA officials' financial secrets exposed in new Wikileaks-style trove Fusion, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
BBC Sports. Panama Papers: Uefa offices searched by Swiss police BBC, retrieved May 15, 2016^
Fusion Investigative Unit. Here are the famous politicos in 'the Wikileaks of the mega-rich' Fusion, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Owen Gibson. Leaked papers give Fifa ethics committee new credibility crisis The Guardian, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Juliette Garside, Holly Watt, David Pegg. The Panama Papers: how the world's rich and famous hide their money offshore The Guardian, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Simon Bowers. Iceland's PM faces calls for snap election after offshore revelations The Guardian, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^
Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Vanessa Wormer, Wolfgang Jaschensky. About the Panama Papers Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 3, 2016, retrieved April 3, 2016^

Disclosures

Tax haven

International banking

Illegal activities

Recovered money

Newsroom logistics

Data security

Leak and leak journalism

People named

Client services

Sanctioned clients

Clients of Mossack Fonseca

Responses by Mossack Fonseca

Responses in Panama

Public officials

Law enforcement

Allegations, reactions, and investigations

Europe

Asia

North America

South America

Africa

Oceania

Australia

Cook Islands

New Zealand

Niue

Samoa

Australia

Cook Islands

New Zealand

Niue

Samoa

International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) investigation

See also

Further reading

External links

References