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Panama Papers

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Countries with politicians, public officials or close associates implicated in the leak as of April 3, 2016
  Countries of people implicated
  European Union

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 individuals, including public officials, hide their money from public scrutiny. The papers 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 forty other countries, including Brazil, China, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Syria and the United Kingdom. The UK was singled out by the media as being "at the heart of super-rich tax-avoidance network."[1]

While the use of offshore business entities is not illegal in the jurisdictions in which they are registered, during their investigation reporters found that some of the shell companies may have been used for illegal purposes, including fraud, drug trafficking, and tax evasion.[2]

The documents were made available to the Süddeutsche Zeitung beginning in early 2015 by an anonymous source, an unremunerated whistleblower using the pseudonym "John Doe".[3] The information documented actions going back to the 1970s and eventually totaled 2.6 terabytes of data. Given the scale of the leak, the newspaper enlisted the help of the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), distributed documents for investigation and analysis to some 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in 76 countries.[4] The first news reports based on the papers, and 149 of the documents themselves, were published on April 3, 2016. A full list of companies is promised for early May 2016.

Background

Main articles: Mossack Fonseca, Tax haven, and Offshore financial centre

While no formal definition exists, offshore financial centers (sometimes also called "tax havens") are typically defined as jurisdictions whose banking industries:

  1. primarily provide services to people or businesses who are not resident;
  2. do not require companies to disclose information; and
  3. have low-tax regimes.[5]

Companies and individuals may establish offshore accounts for a variety of reasons, some "perfectly legal and benign".[6] However, as noted by The Economist and researchers like the Tax Justice Network, "the most obvious use of offshore financial centers is to avoid taxes".[7][8] Igor Angelini, the head of Europol's Financial Intelligence Group, shell companies also "play an important role in large-scale money laundering activities". The same, he says, applies for corruption: offshore companies are often used to "transfer bribe money".[9]

Law firms play a central role in the operation of offshore financial centers.[8] Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm, is one of the biggest,[10] and an "industry leader".[11][12] The firm's services include incorporating shell companies in offshore financial centers and administering them otherwords.[13] This 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".[6] The leaked papers detail some of these structures.[14]

Mossack Fonseca has acted on behalf of more than 300,000 companies, most of which are registered in the UK or in British-administered offshore financial centers.[13] The firm works with the world's biggest financial institutions, such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, UBS, Commerzbank and Nordea.[12][15]

The Tax Justice Network says that Panama is one of the oldest and best known tax havens in the Americas, as well as "the recipient of drugs money from Latin America, plus ample other sources of dirty money from the US and elsewhere", according to The Conversation.[16] In recent years it has adopted a hard-line position as a jurisdiction that refuses to cooperate with international transparency initiatives.[16] In The Sink: Terror, Crime and Dirty Money in the Offshore World, a 2003 examination of tax havens by Jeffrey Robinson, a US Customs official is quoted as saying:

The country is filled with dishonest lawyers, dishonest bankers, dishonest company formation agents and dishonest companies registered there by those dishonest lawyers so that they can deposit dirty money into their dishonest banks. The Free Trade Zone is the black hole through which Panama has become one of the filthiest money laundering sinks in the world.[16][17][18]

The Tax Justice Network says that :

Until now Panama has been fairly indifferent to reputational issues, but the increased attention that Panama receives will inevitably raise concerns among the punters that Panama is no longer able to effectively protect the identity of the crooks and scammers attracted by its dodgy laws and equally dodgy law firms. So now is a good moment to draw attention to how Panama developed as a secrecy jurisdiction and how it continues to provide full service – wash, rinse and dry – to crooks and money launderers from around the world.[16][17][19]

Leak timeline and logistics

File:Panama papers sz chat.jpg
A conversation between Süddeutsche Zeitung and the anonymous source

More than a year before the first publication of the Panama leaks in April 2016,[20] the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung was offered large caches of documents from an anonymous source, who identified himself by the classic placeholder name "John Doe". The newspaper 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,[21] providing information on 214,488 offshore entities related to public officials.[22] The leak consists of 11.5 million documents created between the 1970s and late 2015 by Mossack Fonseca.[10]

The reporters communicated with the source only via encrypted channels,[23] as he demanded anonymity:[24] "There are a couple of conditions. My life is in danger, we will only chat over encrypted [lines]. 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.[24]

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists organized the research and review of documents. They enlisted reporters and resources at The Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde, SonntagsZeitung, Falter, and La Nación and German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, and Austrian ORF. The team initially met in Munich, Lillehammer, London, and Washington, DC to structure their research.[3] The data was distributed to and analyzed by about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than 80 countries.[10] After more than a year, the news reports based on the first documents, along with 149 of the documents themselves,[25] were published on April 3, 2016.[21] Among other planned disclosures, the full list of companies is to be released in early May 2016.[26]

The total quantity of the leaked data significantly exceeds that of the Wikileaks Cablegate 2010[21] (1.7 GB),[27] 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.[21] 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.[21] 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.[21][importance?]

The data was indexed using proprietary software donated by the Australian company Nuix.[2] The software is also used by international investigators. Nuix was used to perform optical character recognition (OCR) on the millions of scanned documents, making the data machine-readable and searchable. Reporters then used Nuix tools to extract individual and corporate names from the documents for analysis.[2] Compiled lists of important people were then cross matched against the processed documents.[21] The next step in the analysis was to connect people, roles, monetary flow, and structure legality.[21]

The company advised its customers April 1, 2016, of an email hack, but denied any connection to the leak, saying the hack was limited. Privacy experts have noted that the company did not encrypt its emails[28] and also seems to have been running a three-year-old version of Drupal with several known vulnerabilities.[28]

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, through a Panamanian company set up on behalf of an unnamed client twelve months after the robbery. The money was put through Feberion, which had issued bearer shares only, and other front companies, via banks in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Two nominee directors from Sark were appointed to Feberion.[29] The offshore firms served to recycle the funds through transactions in land and property in the United Kingdom.[29] 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.[29]

Clients

Main article: List of people named in the Panama Papers

Reports from April 3 noted financial and power connections to multiple high-ranking political figures and their relatives.[10][30][31]

Several national leaders were named, 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.[30] Former heads of state mentioned in the papers include Sudanese President Ahmed al-Mirghani, the Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and prime ministers of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili, of Iraq Ayad Allawi, of Jordan Ali Abu al-Ragheb, former prime minister of Qatar Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, former Ukrainian prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko,[30] and Ion Sturza of Moldava[32]

The leaked files identified 61 family members and associates of prime ministers, presidents and kings,[33] including the late father of British prime minister David Cameron, the brother-in-law of China's paramount leader Xi Jinping,[30] the son of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak,[30] the children of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif,[30] and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev,[30] the nephew of South African President Jacob Zuma,[34] the grandson of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev,[30] the personal secretary of Moroccan King Mohammed VI,[30] and the "favourite contractor" of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.[30]

Other clients included less-senior government officials and their close relatives and associates, from over forty different countries, including Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada,[35] 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.[30]

United Arab Emirates President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Many individuals mentioned in the Panama Papers were connected with the world governing body of association football, FIFA, including former President of CONMEBOL Eugenio Figueredo,[36] former President of UEFA Michel Platini,[37] former Secretary General of FIFA Jérôme Valcke,[37] Argentine player Lionel Messi, and from Italy, the head manager of "Metro" Antonio Guglielmi.[36] The leak also revealed an extensive conflict of interest connection between a member of the FIFA Ethics Committee and former FIFA vice president Eugenio Figueredo.[36] Swiss police searched the offices of the Uefa, European football's governing body, after the naming of former secretary-general Gianni Infantino to president of FIFA. Infantino has denied wrongdoing, and 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.[38]

Passports of at least 200 Americans were discovered in the Papers, but no US politicians have been named in the leak so far.[30][39][40]

Mossack Fonseca ran six businesses for Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, despite US sanctions against him.[41] DCB Finance, a Virgin Islands-based shell company founded by North Korean banker[42] Kim Chol Sam and British banker Nigel Cowie[43] also ignored international sanctions and continued to do business with North Korea with the help of the Panamanian firm. The US Department of the Treasury in 2013 called DCB Finance a front company for Daedong Credit Bank and announced sanctions against both companies for providing banking services to Korean arms dealer Korea Mining and Development Trading Corporation,[42] 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.[43]

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."[44] Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif's three children — Mariam Safdar, Hasan and Hussain Nawaz Sharif are among the 200 elites listed in the Panama Papers as owners of offshore companies in a tax haven.[45]

Popular Indian celebrities such as Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan are also involved, along with the real estate developer, DLF owner Kushal Pal Singh, and Sameer Gehlaut of the Indiabulls group, as well as Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani.[46][47] Politicians on the list include Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal, the former chief of the Delhi unit of Loksatta Party.[48]

Actor Jackie Chan has been mentioned in the leaks as a shareholder of six companies all based in the British Virgin Islands.[49]

Among the celebrities involved in this list, the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, who (along with his brother Augustine) created a company called Glen Valley in the British Virgin Islands, which are a tax haven. Mexican actress Edith Gonzalez was related through her husband Lorenzo Lazo, who was a Televisa partner, Veracruz governor and currently owns an airline online. Similarly, it is ensuring that the president of TV Azteca, Banco Azteca and Azteca Foundation, Benjamin Ricardo Salinas Pliego, used an offshore company set up in the Virgin Islands with Panamanian firm for the purchase of a yacht. Daddy Yankee appeared inside the huge leak of information from the Panama Papers. [50]

Icelandic Prime Minister

Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Prime Minister of Iceland until 5 April 2016.

Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, the wife of Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson held an interest in the country's failed banks through offshore company Wintris Inc. Sigmundur Davíð, elected after the 2008 banking collapse in Iceland, had pledged to clean up corruption in the banking system. The couple bought Wintris in 2007 from Mossack Fonseca through the Luxembourg branch of Landsbanki.[51] But Sigmundur Davíð didn't declare his interest in the company when he entered parliament in 2009, and didn't sell his 50% of Wintris to his wife—for $1 -- until eight months later,[52] on the day before a new law took effect that would have required him to declare the conflict of interest.[53]

Contacted by ICIJ journalists ahead of publication, the couple issued statements about journalist encroachment on their private lives and insisted on their disclosures were complete and the company paid taxes in Iceland. However, since his position involved negotiating with bank creditors and his wife as a bondholder was among them, citizens felt he had a strong conflict of interest. Calls for a snap election in parliament were expected,[54] but following the papers' release, faced calls for his resignation instead. Between 22,000 and 24,000 people attended a protest outside parliament on April 4, 2016, and Edward Snowden wondered in a tweet if this constituted the "largest protest by percentage of population in history".[55][56][57]

On April 4, 2016, Sigmundur Davíð announced on live television that he would not resign in the wake of the Panama Papers revelations, calling their content "nothing new".[58] He said he had not broken any rules and that his wife did not benefit financially from his decisions.[52] However, on April 5, he asked the President of Iceland to dissolve Parliament and call for a general election. The president refused, saying it was not clear that other parties supported the move.[59] Sigmundur Davíð announced his resignation April 5, though later press statements from his office suggested that he merely "stepped aside" for a time.[60][61]

Ukrainian President

Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, set up a secret offshore company in the British Virgin Islands during the time when his troops were being defeated in bloody battles with pro-Moscow rebels. Leaked documents from the Panama Papers reveal Poroshenko registered the company, Prime Asset Partners Ltd, on 21 August 2014. Records in Cyprus show him as the firm’s only shareholder.[62]

Juan Armando Hinojosa

In 2015 Juan Armando Hinojosa Cantú, a close friend of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, enlisted Mossack Foneska to create trusts for accounts worth $100 million after he was investigated for allegedly giving special favours to the Mexican president and his wife, according to an analysis by ICIJ, who said that the documents showed “a complex offshore network” of nine companies in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.[63] Described as Peña Nieto's “favorite contractor”, Hinojosa's companies have won more than eighty government contracts and received at least $2.8 billion in state money, The New York Times reported last year."[64]

Sergei Roldugin

The documents leaked indicated that Sergei Roldugin, a professional cellist described by Novaya Gazeta as Vladimir Putin’s best friend and the godfather of his eldest daughter, had acquired assets worth at least $100 million, including a 12.5% stake in Video International, Russia's largest television advertising firm.[65] He was approached by journalists of Novaya Gazeta prior to publication of the Panama Papers.[66] They asked him about his offshore accounts;[66] he said "I have to take a look and find out what I can say and what I can't", because, he said, financial matters are "delicate".[66] He told them his assets result from business activities many years ago, even "before perestroika".[66] He also said that money in the accounts was used to subsidize the House of Music in St Petersburg.[66]

Tatiana Navka

After The Guardian wrote that Tatiana Navka, an Olympic figure-skating champion and wife of Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, had an offshore account for two years before their marriage, Peskov replied that they are not going to sue the newspaper for this publication, as neither he, nor his wife, have been accused of any wrongdoing.[67]

Lionel Messi

The family of Argentine football star Lionel Messi announced that they will file 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 Argentine Tax Agency.[68]

HSBC

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."[69]

Mossack Fonesca Companies

Mossack Fonseca has managed more than 300,000 companies over the years,[13] with the number of active companies peaking at over 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; others in Panama, the Bahamas, the Seychelles, Niue, and Samoa. Mossack Fonseca's clients have come 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.[70] 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.[39] Mossack Fonseca has offices in Nevada and Wyoming.[71]

The leaked documents indicate that about USD $2 trillion has passed through the firm's hands.[72] Several of the holding companies that appear in the documents either did business with sanctioned entities, such as arms merchants and relatives of dictators, while 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 current civil war, and continued to handle its paperwork and certify it as a company in good standing, despite sanctions, until August 2015.[41]

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,.[70]

Nordea

Luxembourg's Nordea bank requested almost 400 holding companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands for their customers between 2004 and 2014.[73][74] The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) has said that "serious deficiencies" exist in how Nordea monitors for money laundering, and has given the bank two warnings. In 2015 Nordea had to pay the largest possible fine – over 5 million EUR.[73] In 2012 Nordea asked Mossack Fonseca to change documents retroactively so that three Danish customers' power of attorney documents would appear to have been in force since 2010.[73] The director for Nordea Private banking, Thorben Sanders, has admitted that before 2009 Nordea did not screen for tax evaders: "In the end of 2009 we decided that our bank shall not be a means of tax evasion," said Sanders.[73] Other Swedish banks are also present in the documents, but Nordea occurs 10,902 times and the next most frequently mentioned bank only occurs 764 times.[75] In response to the leaks, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said he is very critical of Nordea's conduct and role, while Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson characterized the bank's conduct as "totally unacceptable".[76][15][77]

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".[78]

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." Firm co-founder Ramón 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.[79]

In an interview Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca gave to Bloomberg Mossack said: "The cat’s out of the bag, so now we have to deal with the aftermath."[80]

Consequences

Gerard Ryle, director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, called the leak "probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents."[52] Edward Snowden described the release in a Twitter message as the "biggest leak in the history of data journalism".[81]

"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."[82]

International Monetary Fund (IMF) researchers estimated In July 2015 that profit shifting by multinational companies costs developing countries around $213 billion (UGX710tn) a year, almost 2% of their national income.[83]

Ramon Fonseca said the leak was not an "inside job" - the company had been hacked by servers based abroad. It had filed a complaint with the Panamanian attorney general's office. [84]

Official reactions and investigations

Argentina

Argentine President Mauricio Macri

Argentine President Mauricio Macri is listed as head of a trading company based in the Bahamas 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 under Argentine law.[31]

Australia

The Australian Tax 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.[85]

China

China's leader Xi Jinping with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto

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, the brother-in-law of President Xi Jinping. Deng had two shell companies in the British Virgin Islands while Xi was Vice President, but they were dormant by the time Xi became president. Others named include the son and daughter-in-law of propaganda chief Liu Yunshan and the son-in-law of Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli.[86] China's government is suppressing mentions of the Panama Papers on social media and in search engines results.[87]

China is in the third year of an anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi which has punished more than 300,000 party officials for financial misdeeds and created many enemies for Xi.[86][88][89]

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. 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.[90]

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.[91] In 2014, Colombia placed Panama in its blacklist of tax havens.[92]

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."[93] 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."[93]

European Union

Many senior EU figures have been implicated in the Panama Papers scandal.[94] The European Commissioner for Taxation, Pierre Moscovici, has said that the European Union as a whole had a "duty" to prevent the kind of tax avoidance uncovered in the Panama Papers scandal. Moscovici told reporters the use of offshore companies to hide what he called "shocking amounts" of financial assets from tax authorities was "unethical". He estimated that the tax shelters resulted in an annual loss of some €1 trillion in public finances, adding that the European Commission attempted to tighten tax rules across the union since November 2014 due to the "LuxLeaks" tax avoidance scandal (also revealed by the ICIJ), and hoped the extent of the Panama Papers revelations would spur countries to action.[95]

In a 2013 letter unearthed by the Financial Times to the then president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron said that offshore trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as shell companies.[96][97] Some analysts suggest that these actions may have an impact on the outcome of the upcoming referendum on UK membership of the EU.[98]

Egypt

Alaa Mubarak, son of former president Hosni Mubarak was cited as owning, through holding companies, real estate properties in London.[63]

France

French financial prosecutors opened a probe, and President François Hollande said that tax evaders would be brought to trial and punished.[99] Also, as a result, France added Panama to its tax havens list.[100]

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far-right-wing Front National is mentioned in the documents, in addition to several aides to his daughter Marine, the current party leader.[63]

Iceland

On April 5, 2016, Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson announced his resignation.[60] Reykjavík City Council Member Júlíus Vífill Ingvarsson resigned earlier in the day.[101]

Shortly after initial reports of Gunnlaugsson's resignation, the Prime Minister's office in Iceland issued a statement to the international press saying that Gunnlaugsson has not resigned, but rather stepped aside for an unspecified amount of time and will continue to serve as the Chairman of the Progressive Party.[61]

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.[102]

Israel

Some 600 Israeli companies and 850 Israeli shareholders are listed. Among the Israeli names found in the leaked documents are: top attorney Dov Weissglass, 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.[103]

Weissglass’ 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.

Weissglass 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... [the] company activity is reported to the tax authorities in Israel. The required tax on the said activity is paid in Israel."[104]

Mexico

Aristóteles Núñez, who is in charge of the government's tax administration, Servicio de Administración Tributaria, said that people involved in the Panama Papers case can still make tax declarations and pay taxes on 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".[105]

New Zealand

New Zealand's Inland Revenue Department said that they were working to obtain details of people who have tax residence in the country who may have been involved in arrangements facilitated by Mossack Fonseca.[106] 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.[citation needed]

Norway

The Norwegian Tax Administration expects to demand access to information from DNB (Norway's largest financial services group) about approximately 30 companies formed by DNB that are owned by Norwegians, 20 of whom are living in Norway.[107] 200 Norwegians are on the client list of Mossack Fonseca.[108]

Pakistan

Nawaz Sharif – Prime Minister of Pakistan

The three children of prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Maryam, Hussein and Hassan, are shown as owning four companies among them.[109] Maryam Nawaz denied all such charges via her official Twitter account in a series of tweets, stating:

"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".[110]

Samina Durrani, the mother-in-law of chief minister Shebaz Sharif from his second marriage and Ilyas Mehraj, his brother-in-law from his first marriage are also included in the documents.The late Benazir Bhutto and her nephew are also mentioned.[109]

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.[111] Minister of the Presidency, Alvaro Alemán categorically rejects that Panama is considered a tax haven and ruled that no permit is used the country as a "scapegoat", thus reacting to the scandal "Panama Papers" and the subsequent re-registration by France in the list of tax havens. Alemán criticized vigorously the statements made by the Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) José Ángel Gurría and Minister of Finance of France, Michael Sapin and considered as disrespectful and irresponsible, especially when publications speak of a total of 21 jurisdictions, but only lash out at Panama.[112] Alemán explained that talks have started with the French ambassador in Panama, with whom the issue will be discussed preliminarily and establish avenues of understanding to clarify the situation being implicated the country.[113] Eduardo Morgan, from the Panamanian firm Morgan & Morgan accuses the OECD of being behind the campaign to avoid competition that Panama represents for the interests of other countries.[114] The Panama Papers are a very serious issue for Panama because it affects in an "unfair" manner the country's image and is not the result of an investigation, but is a "hack". This was stated on April 5, by Adolfo Linares, president of the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama (Cciap).[115] The Colegio Nacional de Abogados de Panama (CNA) urged the Panamanian government to sue anyone who has affected the country's image with the massive leak of documents linking the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca with the creation of companies to move capital evading taxes. [116] Political analyst Mario Rognoni said that Panama is the most affected in the whole scandal 'Panama Papers'. He said the world is pointing to Panama as a tax haven and will depend on the policies adopted by the authorities. On the government of President Juan Carlos Varela, he believes he might be involved if he tries to cover up the responsibility of those involved.[117] Economist Rolando Gordon said this hurts the country that has just emerged from the gray list of FATF. The US could ask Panama to modify the law, he said. He explained that at this time is seen as a scandal, but will each country, especially Panama to conduct investigations and determine whether it is true that illegal or improper acts were committed.[118]

Concern. Panama's Lawyers Movement listed as a 'cyberbullying or international cirberterrorism' scandal called 'Panama Papers'.In a press conference, the guild primarily condemned the attack on the country brand 'Panama'.Fraguela Alfonso, president of the movement, said there is no doubt that this is 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, "he said.He said that Panama is not a tax haven and Panamanian corporations are widely used by the Panamanians.The law firm Rubio, Alvarez, Solis & Abrego also reacted and in a press release detailing that "in recent decades Panama has been in the financial and most important services in Latin America and the world plazas. Product of it all kinds of attacks on our service system 'are encouraged.'[119]

Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin

The Süddeutsche Zeitung, which made the papers public, has described the connections of various individuals listed in the papers and their connection to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the newspaper, the release of the papers confirms the previous descriptions of Russia as a kleptocratic "Mafia state" run by Putin and his inner circle.[120] According to Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, "Western mainstream media" reporting of the Panama Papers was engaged in "Putinophobia" as he saw primary target of the leak to be Vladimir Putin, and the Panama Papers as being part of a conspiracy against Russia, orchestrated by the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of State and others.[121][122][123][124]

Vladimir Putin does not appear in any of the records but the names of some of his associates do, like construction billionaires Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, as well as the professional musician Sergei Roldugin and business magnate Alisher Usmanov. [65] The papers also list billionaire Gennady Timchenko, Putin's press secretary's spouse, his cousin, Putin's former KGB colleagues, and several oligarchs as owning offshore shell companies. Previously, in 2011, Putin criticized offshore companies as "unpatriotic".[125]

President Putin has denied "any element of corruption" over the Panama Papers leaks, saying his opponents are trying to destabilise Russia.[126]

Saudi Arabia

King Salman of Saudi Arabia

The Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. did not respond to requests for comment from the ICIJ.[127]

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. [...] [C]urrent King Salman’s net worth is estimated at US$17 billion.[128]

— TeleSUR (April 4, 2016)

The Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef is listed too.[129]

Singapore

The Ministry of Finance and Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement that "Singapore takes a serious view on tax evasion and will not tolerate its business and financial centre being used to facilitate tax related crimes. If there is evidence of wrongdoing by any individual or entity in Singapore, we will not hesitate to take firm action."[130]

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 on April 4.[15][74][131] 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.[73]

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 the AMLO reached this number. 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).[132]

Tunisia

In Tunisia on April 5, 2016, the prosecutor at the trial court in Tunis ordered the opening of a judicial inquiry into the case of the Panama Papers and the Tunisian political figures suspected of being involved, and the judge at the financial judicial pole was put in charge of the case.[133] A parliamentary commission of inquiry was also established in the Assembly of the Representatives of the People.[134]

Ukraine

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko

Following the revelation of possible tax evasion by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the leader of the Radical Party, Oleh Lyashko, urged lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings against Poroshenko.[135] The news about Poroshenko's offshore business came as his government has campaigned against the use of offshores.[135] 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.[135] Even some of Poroshenko's allies backed calls for setting up a parliamentary commission to investigate the allegations.[135]

When he ran for office in 2014, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised voters he would sell his candy business, Roshen, but leaked documents indicate that he set up an offshore holding company instead and moved his business to the British Virgin Islands, possibly saving millions of dollars in Ukrainian taxes.[135]

United Arab Emirates

According to The Guardian, UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan owns London real estate worth more than £1.2 billion through Mossack Fonseca offshore companies.[136]

United Kingdom

According to The Guardian, "More than £170bn of UK property is now held overseas. ... Nearly one in 10 of the 31,000 tax haven companies that own British property are linked to Mossack Fonseca."[137] British property purchases worth more than £180 million were investigated in 2015 as the likely proceeds of corruption — almost all bought through offshore companies. Two-thirds of the purchases were made by companies registered in four British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies which operate as tax havens – Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) – according to Land Registry data obtained by Private Eye magazine through freedom of information requests. The seller's market has sent prices skyrocketing out of reach for many Londoners.[138]

The Leader of the Opposition has called for an immediate independent investigation into the family of British Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured).

Ian Cameron, the late father of David Cameron, ran an offshore fund through Mossack Fonseca that avoided British taxes for thirty years. Cameron had residents of the Bahamas, including a part-time bishop, sign the paperwork.[139][140] His company, Blairmore Holdings, moved to Ireland in 2012,[141] another country known for its lenient tax rules, because its directors believed it would "come under more scrutiny" after the younger Cameron became Prime Minister.[142] In response to his late father's inclusion on the firm's list of clients, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron initially said his family's taxes were "a private matter"[63] but later issued a statement saying that he, his wife and children receive no benefit from the company, Blairmore Holdings, which is still in operation and has assets of £35 million. The company paid no British taxes for thirty years and moved to Ireland because its directors feared it would come under scrutiny. Although The Daily Telegraph alleges that the move took place in 2010, the year David Cameron became Prime Minister,[63] The Guardian alleges this move to Ireland took place in 2012.[143]

Furthermore, The Guardian alleges that the directors of Blairmore sought advice from the London solicitors Simmons & Simmons in March 2008 on where to move the company. "The legal advice was written for Cameron Sr and other directors, who appear to have been 'jurisdiction shopping' for the best place to secure the fund in the future", claims the paper.[143] "Both the Cayman Islands and Bermuda are considered market-leading offshore financial centres with sophisticated investment fund infrastructures ... Both offer political stability, an abundance of professional service providers and responsive regulatory bodies", noted a lawyer at Simmons & Simmons.[143] At the time, Panama was coming under pressure from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development over the secretive nature of its regime.[143]

Cameron, who has denounced offshore tax havens, inherited £300,000 when his father died.[63] In 2012, Cameron said he would be prepared to publish the details of his tax returns; he has yet to do so.[144]

Also included among the documents are the names of six members of the House of Lords.[82]

Spokespersons for the Labour Party criticized the involvement of the Cameron family in the scandal. For instance, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development Diane Abbott described the revelations as "the tip of the iceberg" and "a stitch up", and urged "meaningful reform" of HMRC;[145] Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell condemned the tax avoidance schemes as "immoral"[146] and described the allegations as "extremely serious", saying "HMRC should treat this with utmost priority and urgently launch investigation";[147] Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn urged Cameron to stop "pussyfooting" around allegations of corruption and initiate an immediate independent investigation into the involvement of the Prime Minister's family, as well as tighter laws on UK tax avoidance.[148][149][150][151][152]

Roughly 28 tax havens worldwide fall under British legal jurisdiction.[153] According to the Wall Street Journal, the Panama Papers "are shining a light on the constellation of offshore centers in the last remnants of the British Empire, from Gibraltar to the British Virgin Islands."[154] The BVI was the most popular with Mossack Fonseca, with more than 113,000 of the nearly 215,000 companies it managed incorporated there. Anguilla was in the 10 top ten most-used Mossack Fonseca offshore havens. As the United Kingdom still exercises varying degrees of control over 14 overseas territories and three Crown dependencies, pressure has mounted on Prime Minister David Cameron to make changes.[154] The current Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, called for "direct rule" to be imposed over British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies that act as tax havens,[155] a move Business Secretary Vince Cable agreed with although former attorney general Dominic Grieve described it as a "bit of a nuclear option"[156] which would "destroy the livelihoods" of BVI inhabitants in the finance industry.[157]

The Labour Party also said that Cameron's plans for an "anti-corruption" summit in May[158] would be "a charade" if Cameron, as chair of the summit, did not require representatives of all Crown dependencies and overseas territories to attend.[146]

Jennie Granger, a spokeswoman for the United Kingdom's tax authority, Her Majesty's 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 HMRC had asked ICIJ to share all its data.[52][159]

United States

McClatchy Newspapers, the only participating US news organization, has found four Americans in the documents, all of whom were previously either accused or convicted of financial crimes such as fraud and tax evasion.[39] In 2008, Mossack Fonseca reportedly utilized a 90-year-old British man to conceal the offshore accounts of Marianna Olszewski, a well-known US businesswoman.[160]

The lack of Americans in the leak has been suggested to be due to "the ease by which shell companies can be created in the United States [and] that major international banks based in America tend to have offshore accounts in the Caymans, and this leak was from Panama".

The BBC reported that "many" have questioned why there are not more Americans implicated and suggested that Americans might be using US states, such as Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming where laws ease the creation of shell companies, or other countries such as Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Singapore where English is spoken, a similar legal system and a stable government exists. Recent US laws like the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and others may make tax evasion more difficult for US citizens and more American names could be revealed with further examination.[161]

WikiLeaks

Icelandic investigative journalist and WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson has called for the Panama Papers to be published in full online. Hrafnsson, who worked on Cablegate in 2010, said the withholding of documents is understandable to maximise the impact, but said that in the end the papers should be published in full for the public to access.[162]

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