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The Panama Papers are a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents that provide detailed information about more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, including the identities of shareholders and directors of the companies. The documents show how wealthy public officials hide their money and identify current government leaders from five countries – 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 40 other countries, including Brazil, the People's Republic of China, Peru, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Syria, and the United Kingdom. On April 5, 2016, two days after the initial media coverage of the scandal, the Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, resigned.

Amounting to 2.6 terabytes of data, the papers, which go back to the 1970s, were supplied to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in August 2015 by an anonymous source, and subsequently to the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The papers were distributed to and analyzed by about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than 80 countries. The first news reports based on the set, along with 149 of the documents themselves, were published on April 3, 2016, and a full list of companies is due to be released in early May 2016.

Background

Mossack Fonseca is a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider founded in 1977 by Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca. The company's services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions, administering offshore firms and providing wealth management services. A 2012 Economist article said it is believed to be an industry leader in its country. The company has more than 500 employees in over 40 offices around the world. The firm has acted on behalf of more than 300,000 companies, most of which are registered in the UK or in British-administered tax havens.

Mossack Fonseca is the fourth-largest offshore law firm in the world as of April 2016. The firm works with the world's biggest financial institutions, such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, UBS, Commerzbank and Nordea. Before the Panama Papers leak, Mossack Fonseca was described by the Economist as a "tight-lipped" industry leader in offshore finance.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation wrote on 4 April 2016:

Using complex shell company structures and trust accounts Mossack Fonseca services allow its clients to operate behind an often impenetrable wall of secrecy. Mossack Fonseca's success relies on a global network of accountants and prestigious banks that hire the law firm to manage the finances of their wealthy clients. Banks are the big drivers behind the creation of hard-to-trace companies in tax havens. Much of the firm's work is perfectly legal and benign. But for the first time the leak takes us inside its inner workings, providing rare insight into an operation which offers shady operators plenty of room to manoeuvre....

Leak

More than a year before the first publication of the Panama leaks in April 2016, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung was offered large caches of documents from an anonymous source. The paper accepted and began to receive more and more material; in the space of a year they acquired a total of 2.6 terabytes of data consisting of documents related to Mossack Fonseca, providing information on 214,488 offshore entities related to public officials. The leak consists of 11.5 million documents created between the 1970s and late 2015 by Mossack Fonseca.

The reporters communicated with the source only via encrypted channels, as he demanded anonymity: "There are a couple of conditions. My life is in danger, we will only chat over encrypted . No meeting ever." Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Bastian Obermayer said the source decided to do it because he thought Mossack Fonseca was behaving unethically. "The source thinks that this law firm in Panama is doing real harm to the world, and the source wants to end that. That's one of the motivations," he said.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists organized the research and review of documents. They utilized reporters and resources at The Guardian, BBC England, Le Monde, SonntagsZeitung, Falter, and La Nación and German public broadcasters Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Suddeutscher Rundfunk and Austrian ORF (broadcaster). The team initially met in Munich, Lillehammer, London, and Washington, DC to structure their research. The data was distributed to and analyzed by about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than 80 countries. After more than a year, the first news reports based on the set, along with 149 of the documents themselves, were published on April 3, 2016. Among other planned disclosures, the full list of companies is to be released in early May 2016.

The total size of the leaked documents has dwarfed that of the Wikileaks Cablegate 2010 (1.7 GB), Offshore Leaks 2013 (260 GB), Lux Leaks 2014 (4 GB), and Swiss Leaks 2015 (3.3 GB). The data primarily comprises e-mails, PDF files, photos, and excerpts of an internal Mossack Fonseca database, covering a period from the 1970s to 2016. The Panama Papers leak provides data on some 214,000 companies with a folder for each shell firm that contains e-mails, contracts, transcripts, and scanned documents. The leak comprises 4,804,618 emails, 3,047,306 database format files, 2,154,264 PDFs, 1,117,026 images, 320,166 text files, and 2,242 files in other formats.

The data had to be systematically indexed which was done with proprietary software by the Australian company Nuix, also used by international investigators. The documents were fed to high-performance computers for optical character recognition (OCR) processing, making the data machine-readable and searchable. Compiled lists of important people were then cross matched against the processed documents. The next step in the analysis was to connect people, roles, monetary flow, and structure legality.

Contents

Transactions

Over £10 million of cash from the sale of the gold stolen in the Brink's-Mat robbery was laundered, first unwittingly and later with the complicity of Mossack Fonseca, using a Panamanian company set up on behalf of an unnamed client 12 months after the raid. The money was put through Feberion, which had only bearer shares, and other front companies via banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Two nominee directors from Sark were appointed to Feberion. The offshore firms served to recycle the funds through transactions in land and property in the United Kingdom. Although the Metropolitan Police raided the offices of Centre Services late 1986 in cooperation with the Jersey authorities and seized papers and the two Feberion bearer shares, only in 1995 did Brink’s-Mat solicitors finally take control of Feberion and assets.

People

Early reports noted financial and power connections between multiple high-ranking political figures and their relatives. For example, the Argentine President Mauricio Macri was listed as a leader of a Bahamas-based trading company that he did not disclose during his tenure as Mayor of Buenos Aires; it is not clear whether disclosure of non-equity directorships was then required. The leak revealed an extensive conflict of interest connection between a member of the FIFA Ethics Committee and former FIFA vice president Eugenio Figueredo.

Several other current national leaders have been named in the Panama Papers, including presidents Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, as well as the Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson. Among former country leaders, there were the Sudanese President Ahmed al-Mirghani, the Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as well as prime ministers of Georgia (Bidzina Ivanishvili), Iraq (Ayad Allawi), Jordan (Ali Abu al-Ragheb), Qatar (Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani), Ukraine (Pavlo Lazarenko), and Moldova (Ion Sturza).

According to TeleSUR, United Arab Emirates President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan "used the services of Mossack Fonseca to establish at least 30 companies in the British Virgin Islands that owned and operated US$1.7 billion worth of commercial and residential assets for the Sheikh in high-end neighborhoods in the United Kingdom."

Government officials, as well as close relatives and close associates of various heads of government from well over 40 different countries have also been named, including those from Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Malta, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Syria, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Venezuela and Zambia. Passports of at least 200 American people were implicated.

The leaked files identified 61 family members and associates of prime ministers, presidents and kings, including the brother-in-law of China's paramount leader Xi Jinping, the father of British Prime Minister David Cameron, the son of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, children of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the family of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the nephew of South African President Jacob Zuma, the grandson of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the personal secretary of Moroccan King Mohammed VI, and the "favourite contractor" of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Other documents reveal movements of offshore companies related to the family of Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and the late father of British Prime Minister David Cameron. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had promised voters he would sell his candy business, Roshen, when he ran for office in 2014, but the leaked documents indicated that instead he set up an offshore holding company to move his business to the British Virgin Islands, possibly saving millions of dollars in Ukrainian taxes.

North Korean official, Kim Chol Sam and Nigel Cowie, a British banker created a shell company called "DCB Finance" to go around sanctions, and help sell arms and expand its nuclear weapons programme.

The data also brought to light that Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson had an undeclared interest in his country's failed banks, held through an offshore company. Leaked documents show that he and his wife bought offshore company Wintris Inc. in 2007. The ICIJ said that they bought it "from Mossack Fonseca through the Luxembourg branch of Landsbanki, one of Iceland’s three big banks".

Several high-profile individuals named in the leak are connected with the world governing body of association football, FIFA, including former President of CONMEBOL Eugenio Figueredo, former President of UEFA Michel Platini, former Secretary General of FIFA Jérôme Valcke, current Argentine player Lionel Messi, and from Italy, the head manager of "Metro" Antonio Guglielmi. Popular Indian celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan are involved, along with DLF owner Kushal Pal Singh, Sameer Gehlaut of the Indiabulls group, and Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani. . Politicians on the list include Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal, the former chief of the Delhi unit of Loksatta Party. Actor Jackie Chan has been mentioned in the leaks as a shareholder of six companies all based in the British Virgin Islands.

Vladimir Putin

The name of Vladimir Putin does not appear in any of the records. However, 76% of the UK media coverage of Panama Papers was about Putin, comparing to 24% about David Cameron. According to the media, the Papers indicate that close friends and business associates of Putin, including construction billionaires Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, professional musician Sergei Roldugin, and business magnate Alisher Usmanov, had handled assets worth billions of dollars. American political scientist Karen Dawisha said that it was "inconceivable" that the men would have acquired such wealth in the absence of Putin's patronage. The documents indicate that Roldugin, Putin’s alleged "best friend", who in September 2014 said "I don’t have millions", has acquired assets worth at least $100 million, including a 12.5% stake in Video International, Russia's largest television advertising firm.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s official spokesman, Peskov dismissed the investigation by the Guardian and others as an “undisguised, paid-for hack job and that western spy agencies were behind an all-out “information attack” to destabilise Russia before elections.

Companies

Mossack Fonseca has managed in excess of 300,000 companies over the years, with the number of active companies having peaked at over 80,000 in 2009. Over 210,000 companies in 21 offshore jurisdictions appear in the Panama leaks, more than half of which were incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and many others in Panama, the Bahamas, the Seychelles, Niue, and Samoa. Over the years, Mossack Fonseca worked with clients in more than 100 countries; most of the corporations 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 these clients.

The leaked information says that about 2 trillion dollars in banks and companies have been secretly moved.

More than 500 banks registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with Mossack Fonseca, with HSBC and its affiliates created more than 2,300 in total. Dexia (Luxembourg), J. Safra Sarasin (Luxembourg), Credit Suisse (Channel Islands) and UBS (Switzerland) each requested at least 500 offshore companies for their clients, while Nordea (Luxembourg) requested nearly 400. The Nordea section in Luxemburg has in the years 2004–2014 founded nearly 400 offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands for their customers.

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) has pointed out that there are "serious deficiencies" in how Nordea monitors money laundering and has given the bank two warnings. In 2015 Nordea had to pay the largest possible fine – over 5 million EUR. In 2012 Nordea asked Mossack Fonseca to change documents retroactively so that three Danish customers' power of attorney documents had been in force since 2010. The director for Nordea Private banking, Thorben Sanders, admits that before 2009 they did not screen for customers who tried to evade tax. "In the end of 2009 we decided that our bank shall not be a means of tax evasion," says Sanders. The Swedish minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson characterized the conduct of Nordea as "a crime" and "totally unacceptable". Other Swedish banks are also present in the documents, but Nordea occurs 10,902 times and the bank with second most matches occurs 764 times. The Prime Minister of Sweden Löfven said in response to the leaks in 2016 that he is very critical of the conduct of the Nordea bank, and their role.

Reaction

Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, believed the leak would be "probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents." The leak was described by Edward Snowden, the source of the 2013 leak of NSA's global surveillance program, as the "biggest leak in the history of data journalism" in a Twitter message.

Accused clients

Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson

Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson was found to have held an undeclared interest in his country's failed banks through offshore company Wintris Inc. which he bought in 2007 from Mossack Fonseca through the Luxembourg branch of Landsbanki. He didn't declare his interest when entering parliament in 2009, and only sold his 50% of Wintris to his wife, eight months later, for $1, the day before a new law took effect that would have required him to declare the conflict of interest.

Before the first news reports were published, Gunnlaugsson and his wife, who were contacted by ICIJ journalists ahead of the publication, issued public statements about journalist encroachment in their private lives and insisted on the completeness of their legal disclosures. Sigmundur Davíð was expected to receive calls for a snap election in parliament. Following the Panama Paper publication, Sigmundur Davíð faced calls for his resignation following the revelations, with reports suggesting between 22,000 and 24,000 attending a large protest outside the Icelandic parliament on April 4, 2016, with Edward Snowden asking in a tweet if this did not constitute the "largest protest by percentage of population in history".

On April 4, 2016, Gunnlaugsson announced on live television that he would not be resigning in the wake of the Panama Papers revelations, calling its content "nothing new". He said he had not broken any rules and that his wife did not benefit financially from his decisions. However, on April 5, he asked the President of Iceland to dissolve Parliament and call for a general election, which request the President denied, saying it was not clear that other parties supported the move. Finally, on April 5, Gunnlaugsson announced his resignation.

Friends and associates of Vladimir Putin

Following the publications, Sergei Roldugin, Putin’s "best friend", told journalists "I have to take a look and find out what I can say and what I can't." Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov claimed that the main target of the Panama Papers leak is Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The focus on Putin angered many on social media, and the Russian state-funded media outlet RT International (formerly Russia Today) criticized the focus on Putin in Western mainstream media. The Kremlin called the leak of the information a "US plot" aimed at destabilizing Russia, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying "Putin, Russia, our country, our stability, our upcoming elections are the primary target to destabilize the situation". The Kremlin also claimed that Putin was the "main target" of the leak, and cited the release of the information on offshore accounts as an example of "Putinophobia", saying that:

While Putin does not appear anywhere backed by any facts, it is obvious to us that the main target behind such 'leaks' has been and still is our president, especially in the context of the upcoming parliamentary and, taking the long-term perspective, the presidential election in two years' time.

Lionel Messi

The family of Lionel Messi announced the filing of a complaint after reports accused him of assembling a tax evasion network in Panama. The family denied Messi had been involved and called the accusations slanderous. They said that the company referred to in the Panama Papers was inactive and that Messi had declared all income from image rights before and after proceedings with the Tax Agency.

Mossack Fonseca response

In response to queries from the The Miami Herald and ICIJ, Mossack Fonseca issued a 2900-word statement. In substance, the response identified legal and compliance regimes around the world that reduce the ability of individuals to use offshore companies for tax avoidance and total anonymity. In particular, they cited the FATF protocols which (for companies and financial institutions in the majority of countries in the world) require identification of ultimate beneficial owners of all companies (including offshore companies) to open accounts and transact business.

In an accompanying Editor's note, The Miami Herald stated that the Mossack Fonseca statement "did not address any of the specific due-diligence failings uncovered by reporters".

On Monday April 4, Mossack Fonseca released a statement: "Our industry is not particularly well understood by the public, and unfortunately this series of articles will only serve to deepen that confusion. 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, right here in Panama. Obviously, no one likes to have their property stolen, and we intend to do whatever we can to ensure the guilty parties are brought to justice. But in the meantime, our plan is to continue to serve our clients, stand behind our people, and support the local communities in which we have the privilege to work all over the world, just as we've done for nearly four decades." Also, Firm co-founder Ramon Fonseca Mora told CNN that the information published is false and 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.

In an interview Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca gave to Bloomberg Mossack said: "The cat’s out of the bag, so now we have to deal with the aftermath."

Bank responses

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."

Official reactions and investigations

Australia

The Australian Tax Office subsequently announced that it was investigating 800 individual Australian taxpayers who were clients of Mossack Fonseca and that some of the cases could be referred to the country's Serious Financial Crime Task Force.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev did not respond to repeated requests for comments.

According to ICIJ website, "The family of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev leads a charmed, glamorous life, thanks in part to financial interests in almost every sector of the economy. ... Arzu, have financial stakes in a firm that won rights to mine for gold in the western village of Chovdar and Azerfon, the country’s largest mobile phone business. Arzu is also a significant shareholder in SW Holding, which controls nearly every operation related to Azerbaijan Airlines ("Azal"), from meals to airport taxis. Both sisters and brother Heydar own property in Dubai valued at roughly $75 million in 2010; Heydar is the legal owner of nine luxury mansions in Dubai purchased for some $44 million."

China

Relatives of highly placed Chinese officials including seven senior leaders and former senior leaders of Politburo of the Communist Party of China have been named including former Premier Li Peng's daughter Li Xiaolin and Deng Jiagui, who is the brother-in-law of Xi Jinping, current General Secretary of the Communist Party. China's government attempted to suppress mentions of the Panama Papers on social media and in the results of search engines. Considering the material to be a concerted foreign media attack on China, provincial internet information offices were immediately given verbal orders to delete reprinted reports on the Panama Papers, and not to follow up on related content without exceptions. Websites were commanded to withdraw an article entitled “Panama Papers Leaked, Putin in USD 200 Million Money Laundering Scandal” and related stories from home pages and banish related content to less visited parts of the site. Hong Lei, the spokesman of China's Foreign Ministry, responded that he had "no comment" for "such groundless accusations" at an April 5 news conference.

Colombia

The National Directorate of Taxes and Customs launched an investigation into all 850 clients of Mossack Fonseca Colombia, a subsidiary of Mossack Fonseca that was established in 2009. In 2014, Colombia placed Panama in its blacklist of tax havens.

Cyprus

Central Bank of Cyprus officially declared: "With regard to press reports citing leaked documents, known as the Panama Papers, the Central Bank of Cyprus announces that it is assessing the information to the extent that it may concern the Cypriot banking system and taking, where necessary, appropriate action." A Cypriot online paper said "The Cyprus link stems from the fact that Fonseca runs an office in Cyprus and, more specifically, in Limassol. In a chart, the leaks name Cyprus as a tax haven (countries that offer little or no tax), although it has a corporate tax rate of 12.5%, the same as Ireland."

France

French financial prosecutors opened a probe, and President François Hollande said that tax evaders would be brought to trial and punished. Also, as a result, France added Panama to its tax havens list.

Iceland

On April 5, 2016, Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson announced his resignation. Reykjavík City Council Member Júlíus Vífill Ingvarsson resigned earlier in the day on April 5, 2016.

India

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered an inquiry, and subsequently the Indian government announced that it was constituting a special multi-agency group comprising officers from the investigative unit of the Central Board of Direct Taxes and its Foreign Tax and Tax Research division, the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Reserve Bank of India..

Israel

Some 600 Israeli companies and 850 Israeli shareholders are listed. Among the Israeli names found in the leaked documents are: top attorney Dov Weisglass, who was the bureau chief of the late prime minister Ariel Sharon; Jacob Engel, a businessman active in the African mining industry; and Idan Ofer, a member of one of Israel’s wealthiest families, according to Haaretz.

The appearance of their names does not necessarily imply wrongdoing, only that they are linked to offshore companies mentioned in the documents.

Weisglass’ name appears as a sole owner of one of four companies set up by his business partner Assaf Halkin. The company, Talaville Global, was registered in the British Virgin Islands in May 2012, according to Haaretz, and seven months later, all of its shares were mortgaged against a loan from a Vienna bank.

Weisglass and Halkin told Haaretz that the company “was registered for the purpose of receiving a loan from the bank in order to invest in European properties. The bank would only allow a loan to a corporation… company activity is reported to the tax authorities in Israel. The required tax on the said activity is paid in Israel."

Mexico

Aristóteles Núñez, who is in charge of the goverment's tax administration, Servicio de Administración Tributaria, said that people involved in the Panama Papers case can still make tax declarations and pay taxes for their investments. Being Mexican and having foreign investments or bank accounts is not a crime, but having income and not declaring it is illegal. If the concealment of income from Panama Papers-related investments is categorized as tax evasion, fines of up to 100% of the omitted tax payment can result, as well as three months to nine years imprisonment for a 'tax crime'.

New Zealand

New Zealand's Inland Revenue Department said that they were working to obtain details of people resident for tax in the country who may have been involved in arrangements facilitated by Mossack Fonseca. Prime Minister Key attempted to claim that New Zealand was not a tax haven, despite the well-known fiscal transparency issues of the Cook Islands.

Norway

The Norwegian Tax Administration expects to demand access to information from DNB about the circa 30 companies (that they formed) owned by Norwegians – of which 20 of the Norwegians are living in Norway. 200 Norwegians are on the client list of Mossack Fonseca.

Pakistan

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's three children — Mariam Safdar, Hasan and Hussain Nawaz Sharif — are among the 200 elites whose names are listed in the Panama Papers for establishing offshore companies in a tax haven.

However, Maryam Nawaz categorically denies all such charges via her official Twitter account in a series of tweets. She states:

"As stated earlier, I do NOT own any company/property abroad. My brother has made me a trustee in one of his corporations which only entitles me to distribute assets to my brother Hussain's family/children if needed. Nothing more than what my brother has already explained. The info provided by leaks does NOT say any wrongdoing involved. Distortion is wilful that a couple of media channels using to settle scores".

Panama

The Procuraduría de la Nación announced that it will open an investigation concerning the international journalistic investigation 'Panama papers', where Mossack Fonseca is involved. A YouTube video suggests that offshore companies were used to facilitate the provision of fuel for use by the Syrian air force.

Portugal

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2016)

Saudi Arabia

The Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. did not respond to requests for comment from the ICIJ.

In King Salman’s case, the leaks show that he had "an unspecific role" in Verse Development Corporation and Inrow Corporation While King Salman's precise role is not specified, mortgages are mentioned "in relation to" him and his assets, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said. urrent King Salman’s net worth is estimated at US$17 billion.

— TeleSUR (April 4, 2016)

Sweden

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority said on April 4, 2016 it would launch an investigation into the actions of Nordea, one of the largest financial institutions in the Nordic countries, after Panama Papers revealed the company's Luxembourg office had helped to set up nearly 400 offshore companies for its clients. Nordea cut all ties with Mossack Fonseca following an interview with Nordea CEO Casper von Koskull on SVT. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) has pointed out that there are "serious deficiencies" in how Nordea monitors money laundering and has given the bank two warnings. In 2015 Nordea had to pay the largest possible fine – over 5 million EUR.

Thailand

A Bangkok Post article said that "The Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) is seeking information from its foreign counterparts regarding 21 Thai nationals reportedly included in a list of people worldwide using a Panama-based law firm for money laundering and tax evasion (Note: It is not clear how AMLO reached this number. In fact, the Panama Papers include at least 780 names of individuals and another 50 names of companies based in Thailand. Some are foreigners or foreign-owned companies. There are 634 individual addresses listed in Thailand. Prominent names include the CEOs of giant companies Bangkok Land and Phatra Finance).

Tunisia

In Tunisia, the prosecutor at the trial court in Tunis ordered April 5, 2016 the opening of a judicial inquiry into the case of Panama Papers and Tunisian political figures suspected of be involved, and the judge at the financial judicial pole was in charge of the case. On the other hand, a parliamentary commission of inquiry was established in Assembly of the Representatives of the People.

Ukraine

Following the revelation of possible tax avoidance by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Oleh Lyashko, leader of the Radical Party, urged lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings against Poroshenko. The scandal flared up amid bitter political infighting between Poroshenko's bloc and the party of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which has raged for months and involved mutual accusations of corruption.

United Kingdom

Jennie Granger, a spokeswoman for the United Kingdom's tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), said that the department had received "a great deal of information on offshore companies, including in Panama, from a wide range of sources, which is currently the subject of intensive investigation". She said the ICIJ had been asked to share all its data with HMRC.

Members of the Labour Party frontbench criticized the involvement of Cameron's family in the affair. Shadow Secretary of State for International Development Diane Abbott described the revelations as "the tip of the iceberg" and "a stitch up", urging for a "meaningful reform" of HMRC; Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell condemned the "immoral" tax avoidance schemes used, describing the papers as "extremely serious", saying that "HMRC should treat this with utmost priority and urgently launch investigation"; Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn urged Prime Minister David Cameron to stop "pussyfooting" around allegations of corruption and urged an immediate independent investigation to the involvement of the Prime Minister's family, as well as tightening laws regarding UK tax avoidance, and called for "direct rule" to be imposed over British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies that act as tax havens.

Critics also said that Cameron's plans for an "anti-corruption" summit in May would be "a charade" if Cameron, as chair of the summit, did not move to make all representatives of Crown dependencies and overseas territories attend.

Commentary on western bias

According to Craig Murray, western corporate media that have exclusive access to the leaked documents, namely The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, BBC and the ICIG of the Center for Public Integrity, which is funded by entities such as Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, W. K. Kellogg Foundation or George Soros, filter the information in the leak to promote western governmental agenda. Murray states that "corporate media have monopoly access to the Mossack Fonseca database", and even though countries such as Russia constitute a tiny minority of the money hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca, their reports focus on countries such as Russia, Iran and Syria, and "some tiny “balancing” western country like Iceland". Furthermore, Murray argues that a "UK peer or two will be sacrificed", while "dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished", noting that The Guardian states in its explanation of methodology used to search the files that "much of the leaked material will remain private."

References

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External links

• Panama Papers Portal of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (USA)
• Panama Papers Portal of Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
• Panama Papers Portal of The Guardian (United Kingdom)

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