Panama Papers: German paper publishes ‘biggest leak in history’ on corruption

[Suzanimal]

Panama Papers: German paper publishes ‘biggest leak in history’ on corruption

Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) has released the biggest leak in journalistic history, posting 11.5 million documents from a Panamanian law firm online and providing “rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows.”

SZ said it received the law firm’s documents a year ago from an anonymous source who “wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return.”

The German paper obtained further documents in an investigation that followed, involving “400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries.”

SZ said it decided to analyze the data in cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The data in the so-called Panama Papers, “provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, FIFA officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes,” the German newspaper wrote.

The information in the leak covers the activities of the Mossack Fonseca firm over a period from the 1970s to spring 2016.

“The Panama Papers include approximately 11.5 million documents – more than the combined total of the Wikileaks Cablegate, Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks, and Swiss Leaks,” SZ said.

The data is presented in the form of e-mails, pdf files, photo files, and excerpts from the Panaman firm’s database.

...

The leak claims to expose the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders, including prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the president of Ukraine, and the king of Saudi Arabia.

It also provides data on the financial activities of 128 other politicians and public officials from different countries.

“The associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin” are also identified for allegedly having operated shell firms.

https://www.rt.com/news/338270-panama-papers-corruption-report/

 

[angelatc]

As long as it's their own money I really dont care.

 

[Suzanimal]

Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals elite's tax havens

A huge leak of confidential documents has revealed how the rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth.

Eleven million documents were leaked from one of the world's most secretive companies, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

They show how Mossack Fonseca has helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax.

The company says it has operated beyond reproach for 40 years and has never been charged with criminal wrong-doing.

The documents show links to 72 current or former heads of state in the data, including dictators accused of looting their own countries.

Gerard Ryle, director of the ICIJ, said the documents covered the day-to-day business at Mossack Fonseca over the past 40 years.

"I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents," he said.

The data contains secret offshore companies linked to the families and associates of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak, Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.

Russian connection

It also reveals a suspected billion-dollar money laundering ring that was run by a Russian bank and involved close associates of President Putin.

The operation was run by Bank Rossiya, which is subject to US and EU sanctions following Russia's annexation of Crimea.

The documents reveal for the first time how the bank operates.

...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35918844

 

[donnay]

Moving towards a cashless society.

 

[timosman]

Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/arch...tekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/

Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive leak of their documents ought to be a wonderful thing.

Unfortunately the leaker has made the dreadful mistake of turning to the western corporate media to publicise the results. In consequence the first major story, published today by the Guardian, is all about Vladimir Putin and a cellist on the fiddle. As it happens I believe the story and have no doubt Putin is bent.

But why focus on Russia? Russian wealth is only a tiny minority of the money hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca. In fact, it soon becomes obvious that the selective reporting is going to stink.

The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The main search they have done is for names associated with breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires – the main customers. And the Guardian is quick to reassure that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”

What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include

Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)

among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished.

Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny “balancing” western country like Iceland. A superannuated UK peer or two will be sacrificed – someone already with dementia.

The corporate media – the Guardian and BBC in the UK – have exclusive access to the database which you and I cannot see. They are protecting themselves from even seeing western corporations’ sensitive information by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific searches such as UN sanctions busters. Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6.

What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all the corporate media and their companies, and all the editors and senior corporate media journalists? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and their companies?

What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they could trace?

That would be much more interesting. I know Russia and China are corrupt, you don’t have to tell me that. What if you look at things that we might, here in the west, be able to rise up and do something about?

And what if you corporate lapdogs let the people see the actual data?

 

[thoughtomator]

hugely important story

 

[erowe1]

Why tease us with a reference to corruption without then saying what the corruption was?

 

[UWDude]

Devils pointing light on other devils to take it away from themselves.

 

[TheNewYorker]

Why tease us with a reference to corruption without then saying what the corruption was?

In business, you can avoid taxes by investing in something. If a company makes one million dollars, but spends 500,000 on investing in new technology for their product or something like that, they're only taxed from the remaining 500,000 because that's all of their "profit." (I'm not a businessman so I'm not sure on the complete legality of all the kinds of spending but I think this is a basic summary). This is all normal and fine; all companies require investing in order to grow their company.
So a company in Panama basically made a business in creating fake businesses. Companies could "invest" million of dollars and then it wouldn't be taxed, because according to legal documents it isn't profit, it's an "investment," which is untaxable, and then they would get their money back from the fake business. So imagine if that $500,000 of investments from my above example was fake, and after awhile 90% of the money was given back to the business (I'm assuming the Panamian company took a cut of the money as payment). 2.6 TB of data in total, over 11 million documents and over 200,000 fake companies.

 

[erowe1]

In business, you can avoid taxes by investing in something. If a company makes one million dollars, but spends 500,000 on investing in new technology for their product or something like that, they're only taxed from the remaining 500,000 because that's all of their "profit." (I'm not a businessman so I'm not sure on the complete legality of all the kinds of spending but I think this is a basic summary). This is all normal and fine; all companies require investing in order to grow their company.
So a company in Panama basically made a business in creating fake businesses. Companies could "invest" million of dollars and then it wouldn't be taxed, because according to legal documents it isn't profit, it's an "investment," which is untaxable, and then they would get their money back from the fake business. So imagine if that $500,000 of investments from my above example was fake, and after awhile 90% of the money was given back to the business (I'm assuming the Panamian company took a cut of the money as payment). 2.6 TB of data in total, over 11 million documents and over 200,000 fake companies.

There's nothing corrupt or wrong with evading taxes.

 

[AngryCanadian]

How is this a scandal?

Ironic no American politicians are on the list and timing of the list is rather questionable.

 

[timosman]

What's funny is some of the companies show profits greater that the GDP of the tax havens they operate in and nobody is seeing anything worth investigating in that.

 

[Harmonica]

There's nothing corrupt or wrong with evading taxes.

What about the fraudsters and drug smugglers?

 

[randomname]

hugely important story

Why?

 

[Suzanimal]

There's nothing corrupt or wrong with evading taxes.

I only have a problem with politicians evading taxes. Fuck 'em.

 

[erowe1]

What about the fraudsters and drug smugglers?

Why should they have to pay taxes?

And I didn't see where the article explained how these papers showed fraud.

 

[donnay]

This is how the elite became elite. They do not follow the laws they expect you and I to follow and uphold. "Do as I say, not as I do."

 

[Cleaner44]

As long as it's their own money I really dont care.

Is it ever?

 

[Lucille]

Mossack Fonseca Has 441 U.S. Clients: Who Are They?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-04/mossack-fonseca-has-441-us-clients-who-are-they

As the shock from the initial revelation of leaked Mossack Fonseca files fades away, one recurring question has emerged: why were there no American clients of the firm named (at least not yet)? After all, leaders in Iceland, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Australia and many other nations are already facing questions about their use of the Panamanian law firm, and yet nothing about the US?
[...]
One hint may have emerged when observing at the funding supporters of the project, among which we find George Soros' heavily financially connected Open Society:

Recent ICIJ funders include: Adessium Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Ford Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Waterloo Foundation.

Clearly, this would imply editorial intervention by the funding sources due to a potential "conflict of interest", although hopefully not as that would undermine the objective nature of this massive journalistic undertaking.

There may be a simpler explanation: as Eoin Higgins points out, the 2010 United States—Panama Trade Promotion Agreement included a taxation clause that effectively shut down any chance of the rich in the US using Panama as a shelter.
[...]
According to Higgins, "if Panama had ever been an attractive destination for American offshore storage of funds, this agreement shut the door on that possibility."

Perhaps. However that does not explain why according to an interactive map created by Brian Kilmartin which lays out shotgun data (no names) about the number of companies, clients, beneficiaries and shareholders of Mossack Fonseca, there are at least 441 clients, 3,072 companies, 211 beneficiaries and 3,467 U.S.-based shareholders of the Panamanian law firm.
[...]
It also does not explain why according to primary data compiled in Fusion's interactive universe, one can find an abundance of US-based nodes in the client/company/shareholder and beneficiary map (highlighted in blue).

Indicatively with 441 clients, the US is among the countries with the most clients served by Mossack Fonseca.

So who are these 441 clients, and why has the ICIJ decided not to reveal any of them?

Or perhaps it will all be revealed in due course.

According to a tweet by a tech editor at Germany's Suddeutsche Zeiting - the outlet that received the original leak - there will be more disclosures forthcoming.
[...]
Still, one can't help but wonder: why not do a Wikileaks type data dump, one which reveals if not all the 2.6 terabytes of data due to security concerns, then at least the identities of these 441 US-based clients.

After all, with the rest of the world has already been extensively shamed, it's only fair to open US books as well.

Yes, that. And like Silber said about any and all leaks:

If you wish to challenge authority in any serious manner, you must be prepared to provoke an unholy, chaotic, extremely messy scene, one punctuated with howls of outrage by those in power, where everyone is mortified, humiliated and riven with panic -- including you. Anything short of that is merely a very small speed bump on power's journey to ever-increasing destruction and death.

 

[euphemia]

Under our current system, when someone doesn't pay their correct amount of taxes, it means Congress has, yet again, underestimated the amount of revenue for a given year. They are then forced to borrow the rest, and my taxes go up. This is a means whereby wealthy and powerful Americans can grow more wealthy and powerful. Regular Americans are disenfranchised.