Panama Papers fallout: Mossack Fonseca law firm shuts dozens of offices after leak reveals how world’s wealthiest people stash their cash
A trove of 11.5 million digital records from the Panamanian law firm revealed how many of the world’s wealthy used offshore companies to stash assets
“We had about 45 offices abroad. Now there are about six left,” Jürgen Mossack, one of its founders told a briefing while insisting the Panama headquarters was not expecting to close.
A trove of 11.5 million digital records from the Panamanian law firm revealed how many of the world’s wealthy used offshore companies to stash assets.
Perpetrators ranged from simple businessmen to head of states and sports stars.
The data were leaked to a German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), and reports appeared in major media from April 3, 2016.
Mossack acknowledged that the firm’s credibility had taken a big toll on its bottom line.
“We have had to fire staff,” he said.
In the year since the scandal erupted, at least 150 inquiries or investigations have been launched in more than 70 countries, with authorities examining many cases for possible tax evasion or money laundering, according to the Centre for Public Integrity, a US non-profit group that until February hosted the now-independent ICIJ.
In June, the OECD published a new blacklist of countries not cooperating against tax evasion, on which only Trinidad and Tobago, a small Caribbean country, figures.