Named in the leak were 12 current or former world leaders 128 other public officials and politicians and hundreds of celebrities, businessmen, and other wealthy individuals of over 200 countries. * Swiss lawyer Dieter Neupert has been accused of mishandling client funds and helping both oligarchs and the Qatari royal family to hide money. 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. 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. * Ouestaf, an ICIJ partner in the investigation, reported that it had discovered new evidence that Karim Wade received payments from DP World (DP). * Uruguay has arrested five people and charged them with money-laundering through Mossack Fonseca shell companies for a Mexican drug cartel. Other offshore shell company transactions described in the documents do seem to have broken exchange laws, violated trade sanctions or stemmed from political corruption, according to ICIJ reporters. Steinmetz himself has personal worth of $6 billion. According to The Namibian for instance, a shell company registered to Beny Steinmetz, Octea, owes more than $700,000 US in property taxes to the city of Koidu in Sierra Leone, and is $150 million in the red, even though its exports were more than twice that in an average month in the 2012–2015 period. Some disclosures – tax avoidance in very poor countries by very wealthy entities and individuals for example – lead to questions on moral grounds. 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. The journalists on the investigative team found business transactions by many important figures in world politics, sports and art. It is generally not against the law (in and of itself) to own an offshore shell company, although offshore shell companies may sometimes be used for illegal purposes. 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. Some media outlets covering the story have used the name "Mossack Fonseca papers". ![]() The documents were dubbed the Panama Papers because of the country they were leaked from, but the Panamanian government expressed strong objections to the name over concerns that it would tarnish the government's and country's image worldwide, as did other entities in Panama and elsewhere. The project represents an important milestone in the use of data journalism software tools and mobile collaboration. After more than a year of analysis, the first news stories were published on April 3, 2016, along with 150 of the documents themselves. ![]() Journalists from 107 media organizations in 80 countries analyzed documents detailing the operations of the law firm. SZ asked the ICIJ for help because of the amount of data involved. Doe added that they had never worked for any government or intelligence agency and expressed willingness to help prosecutors if granted immunity from prosecution.Īfter 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. In a May 6th 2016 statement, John Doe cited income inequality as the reason for the action and said they leaked the documents "simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described". "My life is in danger", the whistleblower told them. ![]() With the support and guideline of The Online Journalism Council "John Doe", the whistleblower who leaked the documents to German journalist Bastian Obermayer from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), remains anonymous, even to the journalists who worked on the investigation. ![]() 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. The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials that had previously been kept private.
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