The headquarters of the company in Panama Mossack Fonseca
Leakage of 11.5 million documents - the so-called Panama Papers - the Panamanian law firm and consulting Mossack Fonseca, the fourth largest offshore law firm in the world, would have revealed details of hundreds of thousands of customers who use tax havens in outside supposed to tax evasion, money laundering, drug trafficking and weapons.
The documents, made public on Sunday (03/04), they were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung through anonymous sources and cover a period of almost 40 years - from 1977 to December 2015.
The journalist Georg Mascolo led the investigation conducted by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and two German broadcasters, based on data found in the Panamanian company files. They shared information with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ, the acronym in English) and the international office of the Center for Public Integrity, and hundreds of other media outlets.
"I think the leakage should prove as the biggest blow ever suffered by the world of offshore business, due to the length of documents," said the director of the ICIJ, Gerald Ryle.
More than 370 journalists in 76 countries spent a year analyzing the material. In Brazil, the studies were conducted by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, the UOL portal and Rede TV !.
Revelations "explosive"
On Sunday, Mascolo said he hoped that this revelation about the world of offshore business is very "explosive", adding that still come to light new revelations. The facts "are quite extraordinary, since we did not have an internal perspective of the business of these tax havens, these proportions," he said.
The Mossack Fonseca denies he acted illegally and says leak was criminal act
The director general of the British tax authority HMRC, Jennie Grainger, said it asked the ICIJ access to the material. "We will examine the data carefully and act quickly and property," she said. "Our message is clear: there is no safe haven for tax evaders, and no one should have any doubt that the days of hiding money in tax havens over."
Complaint against leakage
The Mossack Fonseca complaint that disclosure of the documents is criminal. "This is a crime, a serious crime," said Ramon Fonseca, one of the firm's founders. "It is an attack on Panama, because some countries do not like us to be so competitive to attract companies," he said.
The other founder of the firm is Jürgen Mossack, born in Germany in 1948. During World War II, his father served in the Waffen-SS, the Nazi elite troops, reported the ICIJ, citing "old files intelligence" of the Armed Forces American. His father would have offered to work with the CIA spy. He moved to Panama with his family, where Jürgen Mossack graduated from law school.
The company denies that it acted illegally, saying it has always acted above suspicion and performs internal due diligence strict procedures. The firm also operates in Switzerland, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands.
World leaders linked to the scheme
The documents mention twelve current and former heads of state - from Argentina, Georgia, Iceland, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Ukraine - from 143 names of politicians, their families and loved ones upon which you know who used tax havens.
Among the national leaders who have money in offshore companies would be Argentina's president, Mauricio Macri, the Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister and former vice president of Iraq, Ayad Alawi, the chairman of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, the son of former president of Egypt, Alaa Mubarak, and Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson.
The childhood friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, cellist Sergei Roldugin, is cited as the pivot of a scheme to hide money from Russian state banks in offshore companies.
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