The Panama Papers
This is a documentary feature film about the biggest global corruption scandal in history. An anonymous caller gets hold of German for South German Newspaper) which is published in Munich in early 2015. The caller called himself or herself as a pseudonym, That is how the transfer started of about 11.5 million documents from the records of Panamanian law firm Bastian Obermayer an investigative journalist, of Süddeutsche Zeitung ( John Doe and he or she sent a message to Bastian.
“Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data?”
Mossack Fonseca. It seems that John Doe wanted to release information before and had tried other outlets. These attempts had been “killed” either because the information was too much or the newspapers were concerned about blowback in the form of physical harm, threats, or legal action. These documents and emails show that there was a deliberate attempt by certain parties to conceal their wealth. This was done by using offshore accounts, fake directors, company transactions, etc
They went through the process that the journalist face when given so much information. They suddenly realized that it was voluminous and so much that if they were to do it any justice they will have to get additional eyes and brains on this data. They approached the collected all that data and analyzed it building databases and linking information between the documents. Hence there is a International Consortium of Investigative Journalist (ICIJ) it is an independent Washington DC-based international network of journalists. The ICIJ had dealt with issues involving the tobacco industry, climate change lobbyist, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, etc.
web site — Offshore leaks database that enables journalist and interested parties to have access to this information. After some time, people started to get suspicious and they began to threaten the journalist because they began asking questions to verify the data. The journalist were understandably concerned about their safety and had to beef up their security and they were aware that they had to be more careful. Some of them were threatened and a few were killed.
Then the ICIJ
One of the people to be outed was the Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, unfortunately, he had to walk out of a live interview when asked. More than 10,000 people in a country of 330,000 did a protest outside Iceland’s parliament in Reykjavik. He resigned soon afterwards. David Cameron UK’s Prime Minister father was linked to it and the Prime Minister had shares in it. It might have contributed to his decision to resign immediately after Brexit. Then there were Trump’s hotels which were linked to Russian oligarchs and the Russian Mob money laundry. The Brazilian government was deep-rooted in it and the left wing socialist government was deeply rooted in corruption. It did affect those working closely with global banks including HSBC, UBS and Credit Suisse and law firms in the Netherlands, Mexico, the United States and Switzerland.
Police raided Mossack Fonseca’s offices in El Salvador, Peru and Panama City. By the end of 2016, governments and companies in 79 countries had opened 150 inquiries, audits or investigations into the law firm, its intermediaries or clients.
Originally published at http://tundeajao.blogspot.com on February 9, 2019.