PARIS / PANAMA (Reuters) – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and one hundred international media began Sunday night to disclose information on hidden assets in paradise tax by political leaders, sports figures and even criminal organizations.
“It’s the biggest leak of information never exploited by the media,” it said on the website of the World, who participated in the survey for France.
Known as “Panama Papers”, this investigation for a year with 378 journalists in 77 countries covered 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, specialized in the assembly of offshore companies.
The documents, given to German newspaper Zeitung Süddeutzsche by a whistleblower whose identity was not revealed, have analyzed in detail nearly 214,500 offshore entities created by this firm between 1977 and 2015 in twenty tax havens on behalf of clients in over 200 countries.
The analysis of what Le Monde described as a “huge treasure trove of tax evasion” revealed that a thousand French citizens have used the shell companies set up by Mossack Fonseca.
The director of this company, Ramon Fonseca, told Reuters by telephone that his law firm had been hacked “limited”.
“We think there is an international campaign against the right to privacy, “said he said. “The secret is a sacred human right but there are people who do not understand. We believe in secret and continue to work for it to be legally protected.”
Ramon Fonseca, who is co-founder the firm and was until last month a senior Panamanian government, said his firm had set up more than 240,000 companies, “the vast majority” would have been used, he said, “for legitimate purposes” .
OVER ONE HUNDRED oF POLITICAL LEADERS
“We are dedicated to creating legal structures that we sell to intermediaries such as banks, lawyers, accountants and trusts, “said he said. “They have customers, we do not know.”
The list of customers who used offshore financial arrangements to conceal their assets also includes, according to the first revelations in the press, the names of 128 political leaders and twelve Heads of State or Government , six still active.
The Guardian referred in particular to a network of offshore transactions and loans totaling $ 2 billion (€ 1.75 billion) leading to close Vladimir Putin. Reuters was unable to obtain confirmation of this information from independent sources.
Also participating in these files the names of 33 individuals or organizations on the black list of the United States for having had trade relations with the barons of the Mexican drugs, while countries within the scope of sanctions Iran and North Korea and Iran or with Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by Washington.
The holding of such a shell company, “it is usually not very moral but that is not always illegal,” said Samuel Lawrence, journalist at Le Monde, on iTELE, stating that there were often “plays (r) on the cracks and on international vulnerabilities, including jurisdiction for financial transparency, to escape the money legally.”
Meanwhile, Manon Aubry, head of the non-governmental organization Oxfam France, said in a statement that “all governments, rich and poor, must strive to end the abusive use of tax havens.”
the consequences of the publication of these documents are yet difficult to measure. The Australian Taxation Office has given an idea of their potential magnitude by indicating on Monday that she already was investigating more than 800 wealthy clients Panamanian firm.
(Myriam Rivet in Paris with Elida Moreno Panama and Jane Wardell in Sydney, edited by Patrick Vignal and Marc Angrand)
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