Panama Papers

Some one has released a lot of data into the wild; it was someone with  sense of humour - or a sense of outrage. He gave it to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The Main Stream Media are having fun with it. But perhaps the right place to start the story is not with tax evasion but Tax.

Taxation is theft; a simple idea and true. It is the same in principle as the Corvée, i.e. forced labour. Section one of the Theft Act 1968 defines the theft as dishonestly appropriating the property of another with the intent to permanently deprive. It is what Her Majesty's Government does, just like the Mafia and the IRA when they finance operations. The point was made rather well by Frederic Bastiat, a very sound  Libertarian.

If it were used honestly and economically in the national interest it would be justified. A very large most of it is not. Private Eye has been complaining about offshore shenanigans for half a century. Nothing much in that time has changed. The List of Usual Suspects remains the same.

Another aspect to remember is that those complaining about tax are marketing the more or less unspoken idea that paying is a moral obligation. That is why governments invented a brand new crime called Money Laundering. It is based on the idea that they are entitled to know where our money comes from. This makes it easier for them to extort it, to demand their "fair share". Recall that the wonderful people running FinCeN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network enjoy a pleasant chateau in Paris and tax free incomes. This really tells you all that you need to know about another corrupt Boondoggle.

Recall too that the Director General of the BBC was using ingenious arrangements to get away with paying his "fair share". See John Birt And Tax. Is the Beeb still at it? Believe it. As Leona Helmsley said: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes". She went to prison for her pains even though she was a Jew.

Now we have the #Paradise Papers and a rerun of the fraudulent outrage by some of the worst perpetrators & hypocrites, e.g.
#Jeremy Corbyn
  
#Margaret Hodge
   
#Guardian
     
#Scott Trust
   
#Mirror
    
#Labour Party
     
#Jolyon Maugham
 

 

Pandora Papers ex Wiki
The Pandora Papers are 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published beginning on 3 October 2021.[1][2][3] The leak exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including current and former presidents, prime ministers, and heads of state as well as more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, and business leaders. The news organizations of the ICIJ described the document leak as their most expansive exposé of financial secrecy yet, containing documents, images, emails and spreadsheets from 14 financial service companies, in nations including Panama, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates,[4][5] surpassing their previous release of the Panama Papers in 2016, which had 11.5 million confidential documents (2.6 terabytes).[6][7][8][9][10] At the time of the release of the papers, the ICIJ said it is not identifying its source for the documents.[11]

Estimates by the ICIJ of money held offshore (outside the country where the money was made) range from US$5.6 trillion to US$32 trillion.[3][12][13]

 

List Of People Named In The Pandora Papers ex Wiki
casts lights in a couple of unexpected quarters. Blair claims that he is innocent. He is lying in his teeth of course. He uses an onshore arrangement called the Windrush Trust or something of the sort.

 

How The Panama Papers Journalists Broke The Biggest Leak In History [ 24 July 2016 ]
Gerard Ryle led the international team that divulged the Panama Papers, the 11.5 million leaked documents from 40 years of activity of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that have offered an unprecedented glimpse into the scope and methods of the secretive world of offshore finance. Hear the story behind the biggest collaborative journalism project in history.

 

A List Of 300 Tory MPs Who Blocked Inquiry Into Panama Papers
You might feel that the source of this little piece has political views, that he thinks that Labour MPs are less corrupt. Several of the latter have their own financial shenanigans to hide. The actual list comes from Hansard - see https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-04-13/division/16041341001012/TaxAvoidanceAndEvasion?outputType=Names. The same pillar of unrighteousness published the List of MPs who voted to turn away 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian children. He does not tell which are Tory or Labour; the agenda is operational. Nor does he say that this amendment was put by Alf Dubs, a Marxist Jew, working the Holocaust® Racket. Yes, he wants England overrun by Third World aliens.

 

Panama Papers Whistle-Blower Breaks Silence With Manifesto, Offers To Help Prosecutors
QUOTE
The anonymous whistle-blower who leaked millions of Panamanian legal documents related to secret shell companies offered to help authorities investigate and prosecute criminal cases that might arise from them in exchange for immunity.

The whistle-blower, who is identified only as “John Doe,” made the offer in a sweeping manifesto entitled “The Revolution Will Be Digitised,” which was published on Friday in Suddeutsche Zeitung, the German newspaper that received the 12 million or so documents last year.

In the 1,800-word essay, the writer denied published reports that tied the leak to an intelligence agency or government. The motivation for releasing the documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca was exasperation about the “systemic corruption” that has allowed the problem of income inequality to worsen, according to the essay.

Shell companies are often associated with the crime of tax evasion, but the Panama Papers show beyond a shadow of a doubt that although shell companies are not illegal by definition, they are used to carry out a wide array of serious crimes that go beyond evading taxes,” the writer said. “I decided to expose Mossack Fonseca because I thought its founders, employees and clients should have to answer for their roles in these crimes, only some of which have come to light thus far. It will take years, possibly decades, for the full extent of the firm’s sordid acts to become known.”
UNQUOTE
A self-righteous little twerp full of Pathological Altruism. He ignores evil done by governments & financed by extortion i.e. tax men.

 

http://cyprus-mail.com/2016/06/02/cysec-tracked-63-entities-ties-mossack-fonseca/

 

The Panama Papers ex ICIJ
Leads to a group of articles by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - or try https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html

 

https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html

 

The Telegraph Explains How To Beat Tax Man  [ 5 April 2016 ]
Why not of course; they are only going to waste it. They published this on the same day as the next one.

 

Panama Bombshell Spells Demise Of Shadow Finance And Privacy [ 5 April 2016 ]
QUOTE
Panama bombshell spells demise of shadow finance, and privacy 
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
55 April 2016 • 6:47am

The secret world of offshore banks and money-laundering has been under the microscope ever since the financial crisis. Now it is the turn of lawyers, registrars, and the hidden network of facilitators.

The treasure trove of 11.5m documents leaked – or more precisely stolen - from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca lifts the lid on the extraordinary practices of the global elites, and on the alleged services of off-shore legal cabinets for terrorist organisations, drug cartels, sanctions busting, and front companies of all kinds.

The files on 213,000 firms first slipped to the Süddeutsche Zeitung and then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is the biggest data leak in history. It will have long-lasting ramifications.............

The avalanche of allegations has barely begun. The red-hot dossier on US citizens has not even been released. Yet the scandal has already triggered a string of criminal investigations around the world, kicking off in Australia and New Zealand within hours.

Germany’s vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the files go far beyond issues of tax evasion, touching on vital national interests and the rule of law. “It is about organized crime, evasion of UN sanctions, and terrorist finance,” he said.

 “This shadow economy is a risk for global security. We must ban the anonymous letterbox companies. The international community must ostracize any country that allows these dirty dealings,” said Mr Gabriel.

Panama has an extremely aggressive and obstructive attitude. Dialogue has broken down. Pascal Saint-Amans, OECD

Mossack Fonseca’s clients include 23 people under sanctions for helping North Korea, Russia, Iran, Syria, and Zimbabwe. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that 33 of those named are on the US black list for terrorism.

Panama has cornered the trade in anonymous shell companies that allow owners to disguise their identity and carry out global operations secretly. While this may be a legitimate for those in the limelight trying to protect their privacy or to safeguard sensitive corporate dealings, many use it to avoid detection for money-laundering, tax avoidance, or predatory behaviour.

The country has pushed through reforms in a bid to clear its name and to get off the OECD’s  ‘grey list’ of uncooperative tax havens, but has clearly not yet done enough..............

“Panama has an extremely aggressive and obstructive attitude. Dialogue has broken down,” said Pascal Saint-Amans, the OECD’s tax chief. “It is the last financial centre that has refused to implement global standards of fiscal transparency. There has been very strong pressure from the law firms on the Panamanian government.”

Mr Saint-Amans said offshore secrecy in on the wane in most of the world, but becoming more concentrated in Panama. “The majority of undeclared clients are coming clean in other locations, but those who don’t are going to Panama,” he said.

French president Francois Hollande warned violators to prepare for the worst. “I can assure you that investigations will be opened and there will be trials as all the information emerges. The leakers have done valuable work for the international community. They have taken risks and should be protected,” he said.

There was no need for him to spell out the danger. The files shed light on a $2bn nexus of operations linked to the inner-most circle of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a man famed for hunting down his enemies.

The majority of undeclared clients are coming clean in other locations, but those who don’t are going to Panama.

The Kremlin retorted that the Panama Papers were a conspiracy targeted at Russia and intended discredit Mr Putin and destabilize the country before the next elections.

Mr Hollande remains curiously silent, however, on the fate of a French journalist due to face judgment in Luxembourg later this month for receiving stolen documents in the LuxLeaks scandal.

This is part of a pattern where EU leaders support whistle-blowing freedoms at a distance, but deny it at home or within the EU. Such lack of legal clarity is poisonous since the law can be used selectively and for political purposes.

Vows to crack down on off-shore abuses today came from Scandinavia, Switzerland, Brazil, and India, where finance minister Arun Jaitley warned that those who failed to respond to an amnesty on hidden assets last year will find “such adventurism extremely costly”. 

Mossack Fonseca said it does not “foster or promote illegal acts” and insisted in an odd turn of phrase that the “vast majority” of firms registered were for legitimate purposes.

“We believe there's an international campaign against privacy. Privacy is a sacred human right that is being eroded more and more in the modern world. Each person has the right to privacy, whether they are a king of a beggar,” it said.

It is unclear why some world leaders, or members of their family, are posted on the ICIJ’s rogue’s gallery as somehow implicated in the affair.

The Argentine leader Mauricio Macri, the King of Saudi Arabia, and a sister of the former King of Spain are all flagged, yet the supporting documents do not suggest that they have done anything wrong. Critics say there is a risk of a witchhunt and vigilante publicity.

Yet what seems clear is that off-shore finance will never be the same again after these revelations.

“The Panama Papers seem to confirm the evidence from elsewhere that the world’s corrupt elite are gaming the international financial system to launder and protect their stolen wealth,” said Robert Barrington from Transparency International.

Few would disagree [ but I am one - Editor ].
UNQUOTE
It is nice to see self righteous crooks squirm. 


 

Corbyn' Thousands In Offshore Income [ 12 April 2016 ]

Osborne's Tax Summary [ 12 April 2016 ]

BBC's £84 Million In Bermuda [ 12 April 2016 ]

McDonnell's £14,000 A Year Pension Managed In Guernsey [ 12 April 2016 ]

 

UK Government Blocks Foreign Journalists From Press Freedom Conference
QUOTE
On its website the Foreign and Commonwealth Office claims that ‘we’re strengthening the Commonwealth as a focus for democratic practice and development. We’re working with the Commonwealth Secretariat to strengthen its institutions so it promotes human rights, democratic values and the rule of law.’ It continues: ‘we’re engaging with civil society across the Commonwealth.’

In the light of this declaration  one would expect the FCO to welcome this week’s conference in London by the Commonwealth Journalists Association. The would-be participants spend their lives, often at high personal risk, to bring the truth to their followers in their own countries. They include many of the best and bravest editors and reporters. I say ‘would-be’ because some have been denied the chance to attend by their governments.

But others – shamefully – have been frustrated by our government.

British government officials have refused these heroes entry visas to the UK. Instead of being able to enjoy a few days safety and respite in the company of fellow journalists from the 53 Commonwealth countries, they have been snubbed and made to feel even more alone and vulnerable.

Victims of this blinkered British government policy include journalists from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Uganda. These are countries where journalists who try and tell the truth are often threatened, and sometimes even pay with their lives.

The British government knows and recognizes this. Indeed only last week Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister Tobias Ellwood issued a strong statement in the wake of the brutal murder of Nazimuddin Samad, the Bangladesh blogger who was hacked to death by fanatics for expressing liberal views.

Tobias Ellwood professed himself ‘shocked and appalled’ and announced that he ‘strongly condemned this attack on free speech.’ And yet I can reveal that three of Bangladesh’s most distinguished and brilliant journalists have been denied entry by the British government for this week’s conference.

Farid Hossain, vice president of the Commonwealth Journalists Association chapter in Bangladesh, is one.  Abdul Jalil Bhuiyan, the CJA treasurer, is another victim. So is Humayun Rashid Chowdhury, joint secretary.

Other outstanding journalists snubbed by Britain include Ehsan Sehar, President of the Rural Media Network of Pakistan and the Sri Lankan journalist Zacki Jabbar.

When I spoke to Rita Payne, the CJA President, she told me:

‘It’s taken months of work to raise funds to put this conference together. We are bitterly disappointed that key members from our overseas branches are unable to attend either because their visa applications were rejected or their visas arrived too late. Our conferences, which take place in a different Commonwealth country every three years are an opportunity for members to meet and share concerns and information about the state of the media in their countries. This is the first time in nearly forty years that we have held this conference in London and our members are furious that they have been unable to attend.’

What makes this especially ironic is that as recently as December 2012 David Cameron joined Prime Ministers and Presidents of all 53 other Commonwealth countries in adopting the Commonwealth Charter.

Article 5 entitled ‘Freedom of Expression’ states:

‘We are committed to peaceful, open dialogue and the free flow of information, including through a free and responsible media, and to enhancing democratic traditions and strengthening democratic processes.’

Unusually the Queen, as Head of the Commonwealth, signed the Charter in public at Marlborough House on Commonwealth Day 2013.

When Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Malta last November for their biennial summit David Cameron was there, and so was Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The latter’s title is meant to remind us that Commonwealth citizens are not foreigners, they are supposed to be family.

There is an important item in the agreed statement to which Cameron and Hammond put their name in Malta. It is headed ‘Movement of Commonwealth Citizens’. It proclaims ‘the importance to the people of the Commonwealth of easier movement between member states of the Commonwealth for legitimate and temporary reasons in order to benefit from stronger economic, official and cultural cooperation’.

It also speaks of ‘the proposal for a ‘Commonwealth Advantage’ under which all member governments would consider further possible measures to enhance the scope for Commonwealth citizens to access each others’ countries more easily and for longer than is currently possible’.

This will all sound very hollow indeed to journalists and other guests who had been expecting to attend this week’s assembly in London from throughout the Commonwealth. Nor will it ring true with youth representatives invited to be in London for celebrations of Commonwealth Day last month.

Increasingly delegates chosen to play an important part in Commonwealth gatherings in the UK are being denied visas – even though they are respected regional leaders, and often work in the most challenging and dangerous of circumstances to uphold Commonwealth values of democracy, equality of opportunity and free speech.

The taxpayer supports no fewer than six ministers at the FCO. One of them is given specific responsibility for the Commonwealth: Hugo Swire MP.  In this matter he has failed the Commonwealth. He has shown himself, in A. J. P. Taylor’s lapidary phrase about a now-forgotten minister, as ‘another horse from Caligula’s well-filled stable.’ When will our craven leaders and feeble officials recognise the value of the Commonwealth connection? And when will they match fine words with actions that are honourable?

We are all diminished by the very avoidable absence from London this week of front line Commonwealth defenders of free speech and human rights.

In her eloquent speech this morning the CJA President Rita Payne noted that  ‘journalists and other outspoken people are, more than ever, being threatened, harassed , assaulted and sometimes killed for doing their jobs.’

She talked of ‘journalists being arrested abducted and tortured for criticism of police or exposing government malpractice; senior editors have been dismissed or arrested for refusing to reveal their sources; in some countries repressive laws are being introduced to silence the media. The victimisation and even the criminalisation of journalists is sadly becoming all too common in countries inside and outside the Commonwealth.’

Journalists who are victims of oppression in the Commonwealth and worldwide now know that they can expect nothing but bromides from the bureaucratic boobies of the FCO. Last night the CJA held a dinner, where Lord Black made a moving speech about the extraordinary sacrifices made by so many Commonwealth journalists. At the end of his speech Lord Black focused on the Ugandan media.

He spoke of how it has ‘long faced a perpetual litany of threats. Murder, kidnap, and politically-motivated or police brutality of journalists, as well as detention, censorship, criminal defamation, assault and destruction of media equipment, has persisted for decades.’

Lord Black went on:

‘It was into this atmosphere of constant menace that the Human Rights Network for Journalists for Uganda was born in 2006, the “new kid on the block” in the ceaseless battle for freedom of expression. Ten years on, the threats remain and could worsen, following this year’s disputed presidential election. But the landscape has changed. Journalists still face oppression, but they do not stand alone. HRNJ-Uganda, under the leadership of their national co-ordinator Robert Sempala and legal officer Diana Nandudu, are forever by their side – often literally and at personal risk, monitoring journalistic human rights and protecting them from abuse. When police beat up a broadcaster, Ssempala led the protest march – and was himself arrested.’

Lord Black announced that the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda would receive the Astor Award – named after the famous Observer editor David Astor, who loved Africa as much as he celebrated free speech.

Dritto Alice, President of CJA Uganda, was expected to collect the Astor Award on behalf of her heroic colleagues back home.  Yet her visa arrived too late. I understand (but have not been able to confirm) that another representative had his visa denied.

There are times when I feel ashamed to be British and last night – thanks to the gutless inertia of Foreign Office ministers like Hugo Swire and Tobias Ellwood – was one of them. We should have done so much more to celebrate the courage and fearless dedication of our Commonwealth brothers and sisters [ to infiltrating England, robbing the tax payer blind, raping his daughters etc. - or was it something else. Editor ].
UNQUOTE
A Marxist(?) writes.

 

Panama Paper Cartoons
Some come close to telling the truth about the rapacity of governments, which is the message that ICIJ wants conveyed.

 

Panama Papers Whistle Blower Offers To Help Prosecute Perpetrators [ 8 May 2016 ]
QUOTE
The anonymous whistle-blower who leaked millions of Panamanian legal documents related to secret shell companies offered to help authorities investigate and prosecute criminal cases that might arise from them in exchange for immunity.............

In the 1,800-word essay, the writer denied published reports that tied the leak to an intelligence agency or government. The motivation for releasing the documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca was exasperation about the “systemic corruption” that has allowed the problem of income inequality to worsen, according to the essay.........

The journalism group has said on its website [ https://www.icij.org/ ] that it plans to release on Monday a searchable database [ https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160426-database-coming-soon.html ] on “more than 200,000 offshore entities” that are part of its investigation. Mossack Fonseca on Friday said it sent the group a cease-and-desist letter urging it to not publish any more confidential information from the leak.
UNQUOTE
Mr Anonymous is sincere and effective. So was naughty Adolf. Were they right? Up to a point. The unstated assumption that governments are not the world's most dangerous criminal organisations is dangerously naive; one that Marxists embrace wholeheartedly. They collectively extort trillions, not mere billions using Taxes, which are then largely stolen or wasted on special interests. Their operating principle is that they can extort as much as they want from people in their power. That includes their lives. Recall that Stalin murdered millions.
PS The Telegraph tells about the horrors of people protecting  their property from rapacious governments next to an advertisement for off-shore companies. See Bulgaria Company Formation, Ready-Made Company Bulgaria. Not for nothing is it called The Quislinggraph.

 

Tax Evasion Hypocrisy & Paradise Papers
QUOTE
Stories about members of the establishment using offshore tax shelters — ooh er missus! — come along about once a year, thanks to the efforts of the liberal media. Cue a chorus of disapproval from Jeremy Corbyn, Vince Cable, Margaret Hodge and other left-wing panjandrums who demand that the government ‘seize’ Britain’s overseas territories and ‘clamp down’ on tax loopholes. Then, as night follows day, it emerges on the Guido Fawkes website that a large number of these sanctimonious prigs are themselves direct beneficiaries of offshore tax arrangements — and the kerfuffle over the Paradise Papers is no different, as I will shortly make clear. It’s like an annual festival of hypocrisy.

The Guardian has been leading the charge this week, as it always does, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Scott Trust, which owns the paper, was originally set up by the Scott family to avoid paying death duties, as well as the fact that the Guardian Media Group took advantage of a murky web of tax shelters in the Caymans to avoid paying a penny on the £300 million it earned from the sale of Auto Trader Group in 2008. It is nothing short of miraculous that the Guardian’s reporters, when sifting through the latest cache of leaked documents, did not stumble across their own paper’s name alongside Lewis Hamilton’s and the cast of Mrs Brown’s Boys. Luckily, they did not, which allowed the paper’s head of investigations to thunder away about ‘offensive’ and ‘unfair’ tax avoidance in a tub-thumping editorial last Monday.

When it comes to not practising what you preach, the Guardian takes the biscuit but the Mirror comes a close second. It went to town earlier this week on those it labelled ‘tax dodge parasites’ and ‘exposed’ the ‘tax secrets of the wealthy’ including various members of Trump’s cabinet. Weirdly, this doughty custodian of public morals overlooked the fact that Appleby, the offshore tax specialists at the centre of the Paradise Papers leak, looks after the ‘employee benefit trust’ of… yes, you guessed it, Trinity Mirror.

Then there’s the Labour Party which, don’t forget, rents its London headquarters from an offshore property trust. Earlier this week, Jeremy Corbyn demanded that the Queen apologise for using overseas tax havens to avoid paying tax in the UK. Let us gloss over the fact that the Queen is not legally obliged to pay any income tax and therefore cannot, by definition, be guilty of avoidance. Instead, just focus on the fact that John McDonnell’s five-figure annual pension is managed by a global equity company based offshore. As the Shadow Chancellor said: ‘There has been one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us.’ Quite so, John. You just seem a bit confused about which category you belong to.

As for Margaret Hodge, Labour’s most ferocious critic of tax evasion, she received £1.5 million when a family trust in Lichtenstein was wound up in 2011. Three-quarters of the shares in the trust had previously been held in Panama, which Hodge has described as ‘one of the most secretive jurisdictions’ with ‘the least protection anywhere in the world against money laundering’. You could not make it up.

However, ‘star of the week’ must go to Jolyon Maugham QC, the arch-Remainer who tried, unsuccessfully, to take the Government to court in Ireland to derail the Brexit process. ‘Patriotic isn’t about a poppy,’ he tweeted last Monday. ‘Patriotic is about paying your taxes so your country can educate its children and care for its elderly.’ Could this be the same Jolyon Maugham who, in his capacity as a tax barrister, represented seven wealthy individuals in the latest round of their long-running battle with HM Revenue and Customs last month?

When I tweaked Maugham’s nose about this on Twitter, he fell back on the ‘cab rank’ rule, i.e. he is professionally obliged as a barrister to represent the first client in line and cannot be held responsible for their actions. Yes, Jolyon, but presumably the reason you were behind the wheel of that cab is because you’re a barrister who specialises in income tax? I think of this as the pious gunfighter’s defence: ‘Admittedly, I trained to defend people I morally disapprove of, but because they are in a fight by the time I come along my conscience is clean.’

When I hear people like Jolyon roaring away from atop their high horses, I think of that quote attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr: ‘Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.’
UNQUOTE
Hypocrisy? Believe it. Thou hast turned my Temple into a den of thieves.

 

Jürgen Mossack ex Wiki          
Jürgen Rolf Dieter Mossack
(born 20 March 1948) is a German-born Panamanian lawyer and the co-founder of Mossack Fonseca, a former law firm headquartered in Panama City which had more than 40 offices worldwide.

Mossack was born in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, on 20 March 1948.[2] His father, Erhard Mossack, was a Rottenführer (senior corporal) in the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel, during World War II. According to U.S. intelligence files, he offered to spy for the Americans after the war.[citation needed]

When Jürgen Mossack was 13 he moved with his father and the rest of his family to Panama.[3] Once in Panama Erhard Mossack offered his services to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for spying on Communist activity in Cuba.[4][5] Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, said in 2016, when contacted by journalists, that they had documents related to Erhard Mossack but would not share any information, owing to possible security risks.[6][7]

Mossack received a bachelor's degree in law from Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua in 1973.[4][8]

In 1975, Mossack worked as a lawyer in London before returning to Panama to start a firm in 1977. Mossack’s practice only became Mossack Fonseca in 1986, when it merged with the firm run by Ramón Fonseca Mora, a Panamanian novelist, lawyer, and politician.[4][6] They built a global group of 600 employees and 46 subsidiaries, including the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Jersey, Luxembourg, the US, specifically the states of Wyoming, Florida, and Nevada.

Mossack served on Conarex, Panama’s council on foreign relations, from 2009 to 2014...sup id="cite_ref-gatekeeper_4-3" class="reference">[4][9] On 7 April 2016, he announced that given the leak he was resigning from Conarex, the national foreign relations council.[10][11]

His brother Peter Mossack has served as Honorary Consul of Panama in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 2010 to date.[12][13][14]

Mossack is a member of International Bar Association, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the Panama Bar Association; the International Maritime Association; and the Maritime National Association.[8] Mossack’s holdings, according to the files obtained by ICIJ, include a teak plantation and other real estate, an executive helicopter, a yacht named Rex Maris and a collection of gold coins.[4]

Investigations  
On 3 April 2016, leaked documents from the company's private archive, dubbed the "Panama Papers", revealed detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors. Mossack told the Wall Street Journal that the intermediary banks that his firm worked with — and who represent the final recipients of the shell companies — should have done better reviews of their clients: “Our brand needs to be protected. We feel the best way to protect the brand is by doing things ourselves and not rely on others.”[15]

News stories in May questioned whether the Panamanian consul in Frankfurt should be using the Panama@mossfon.com email address that he is.[16]

Mossack Fonseca was linked to a corruption investigation in Brazil into bribes paid to politicians by companies doing business with the state-run oil company, Petrobras. Investigators began focusing on the law firm after finding an array of apartments in the names of relatives of an imprisoned politician, the New York Times reported.[17] Mossack took a leave of absence from his position as a presidential advisor on March 11, 2016 after Spanish prosecutors requested information about corporations linked to Ignacio González as part of a money-laundering investigation in that country. He had held the office since President Juan Carlos Varela took office in 2014. He remained the acting president of the Panameñista Party.[18]

Personal life
Mossack has one son, Michael, and four daughters, Karin, Jennifer, Andrea and Nicole. The latter two have been covered in the Panamanian press since at least 2003 for showjumping.[19][20] His daughter Jennifer worked in his firm and was point of connection for a lobbyist of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.[21]

Mossack is a member of the prestigious Club Unión, where his daughter Nicole made her debut in 2008.[22] She is married to Tomás Altamirano.[23]

 

Ramón Fonseca Mora ex Wiki     
Ramón Fonseca Mora
(born 14 July 1952) is a Panamanian novelist and lawyer, the co-founder of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama with more than 40 offices worldwide. He was minister-counselor of Juan Carlos Varela, and president of the Panameñista Party until he was dismissed in March 2016, due to the Brazilian Operation Car Wash.[1]

 

Mossack Fonseca ex Wiki       
Mossack Fonseca & Co.
(Spanish pronunciation: [mos.ˈsak̚k fõn.ˈse.ka] was a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider,.[1][3] It was, at one time, the world's fourth biggest provider of offshore financial services. From its 1977 foundation until the April 2016 publication of the Panama Papers it remained mostly obscure, even though it sits at the heart of the global offshore industry, and acts for about 300,000 companies. More than half are registered in British tax havens – as well as in the UK.[4] The firm received worldwide media attention in April 2016, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published information about its clients' financial dealings in the Panama Papers articles, following the release of an enormous cache of its documents from between 1970 and 2015 leaked to the news media.[5] Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who led the disclosure efforts, was subsequently murdered by a car bomb on October 16, 2017.[6]

On March 14, 2018, the law firm announced that it was shutting down, because of the economic and reputational damage inflicted by the disclosure of its role in global tax evasion by the Panama Papers.[7]