ROBERT PALMER
T H E P A N A M A P A P E R S The biggest data leak in history
ROBERT PALMER
Robert Palmer is a policy analyst and campaign leader with Global Witness, investigating how the financial system facilitates corruption and developing practical policy solutions to prevent abuses of this system. In 2011, Robert exposed the role of financial institutions which had handled $ 64bn of Libyan state assets.
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08 n April 3, 2016 we saw the largest data leak in history. The Panama Papers exposed rich and powerful individuals hiding vast amounts of money in offshore accounts. What does this mean?
There was a whole slew and deluge of stories coming out from the leak of 11 million documents from the Panamanianbased law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The files show how Mossack Fonseca clients were able to launder money, dodge sanctions and avoid tax. In one case, the company offered an American millionaire fake ownership records to hide money from the authorities. This is in direct breach of international regulations designed to stop money laundering and tax evasion.
The release of these papers from Panama lifted the veil off a tiny piece of the secretive offshore world. We have been given an insight into how clients, banks and lawyers go to companies like Mossack Fonseca and see the mechanics of how this whole world operates.
Revealed in the Papers were links to 12 current or former heads of state and government in the data, including dictators accused of looting their own countries. More than 60 relatives and associates of heads of state and other politicians are also implicated. The files also reveal a suspected billion-dollar money laundering ring involving close associates of Russia ' s President, Vladimir Putin. This might validate claims that Putin is secretly one of the wealthiest people in the world. Also mentioned are the brother-in-law of China ' s President Xi Jinping; Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko; Argentina President Mauricio Macri; the late father of UK Prime Minister David Cameron and three of the four children of Pakistan ' s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The documents show that Iceland ' s Prime Minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, had an undeclared interest linked to his wife ' s wealth. He resigned shortly after these revelations became public. The scandal also touches football ' s world governing body, Fifa. Several documents suggest that a key member of Fifa ' s ethics committee, Uruguayan lawyer Juan Pedro Damiani, and his firm provided legal assistance for at least seven offshore companies linked to a former Fifa vice-president arrested last May as part of the US inquiry into football corruption.
The leak has also revealed that more than 500 banks, including their subsidiaries and branches, registered nearly 15,600 shell companies with Mossack Fonseca. There was also news that an ally of the brutal Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad has also got offshore companies.
This leak is hugely significant, because it shows the true scale of money laundering and the usage of tax havens. It reveals the