This scandal could be bigger then wiki leaks in terms of its damage...major heads of states billions of dollars...tax havens...secret accounts. The UK is even thinking about closing the Isle of Man as a tax haven over this breach...this is big.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016...-panama-papers

What is Mossack Fonseca?

It is a Panama-based law firm whose services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands. It administers offshore firms for a yearly fee. Other services include wealth management.

Where is it based?


The firm is Panamanian but runs a worldwide operation. Its website boasts of a global network with 600 people working in 42 countries. It has franchises around the world, where separately owned affiliates sign up new customers and have exclusive rights to use its brand. Mossack Fonseca operates in tax havens including Switzerland, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, and in the British crown dependencies Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

How big is it?


Mossack Fonseca is the world’s fourth biggest provider of offshore services. It has acted for more than 300,000 companies. There is a strong UK connection. More than half of the companies are registered in British-administered tax havens, as well as in the UK itself.

How much data has been leaked?


A lot. The leak is one of the biggest ever – larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013. There are 11.5m documents and 2.6 terabytes of information drawn from Mossack Fonseca’s internal database.

Looks like the Iceland PM is flustered by this leak.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/vid...question-video

Some links below.

ICIJ site:
https://panamapapers.icij.org

German paper that broke story:
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/

Wiki:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers

Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/c..._company_data/

now if they could only do the Swiss papers, with the same info released

There are hundreds of stories beneath the story. Outlawing cash isn't one of them. The danger of crypto currencies is.

Just one word can say so much about its speaker.

Putin needing a rainy day fund seems reasonable enough. Russians

disgonbgud.gif

They still have lots of stuff they havent published yet. Le Monde is teasing that a major French political party is involved, reveal on tuesday.

They literally gave names from all over the world except North America. Couldnt find an explanation why. Hopefully they have good stuff in store on that front too.

Also: lol Shuffle.

I wouldn't spit on the guardian if it was on fire.

11.5 million documents, 2.6 terabytes... but yeh lets lead with a story about a foreign boogie man. Unless these documents become fully public don't expect to get anything good on anyone who matters in the Western World. Highly doubt the UK government are considering closing down a tax haven, they led the race to bottom in Europe. A bit of bluster for a week then we can all go back to talking about immigration.

edit:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...m-panama-leak/

http://www.bbc.com/news/35956324

It's pretty ridiculous that they keep these kind of mails in their database

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/3/11356326/panama-papers

Fund run by David Cameron’s father avoided paying UK tax

This is kind of a strange statement, given that the U.S. has been actively involved in cracking down on Swiss bank secrecy in recent years, and passed a comprehensive set of rules designed to force foreign banks to turn over the names of direct U.S. account holders.

EDIT: One scandalous thing, though, is the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, which allows people who have been filing fraudulent tax returns for years to get off with a monetary penalty, rather than going to jail. DoJ and especially the IRS probably don't have the manpower to lock up all the people they could lock up with the information they've been getting out of Switzerland, but it's still pretty galling to see people get away with it.

I am shocked that wealthy/intelligent people that have access to the tools and resources to get around paying taxes are doing so. Who could have ever seen this happening!

In all seriousness though, this will just be used as an excuse for more surveillance, stronger KYC laws and less privacy. In which wealthy/intelligent people will continue to find loop holes around.

The Planet Money episode on this is gonna be fun.

They just finished replaying their 2 episodes on setting up a shell corporation in Belize. Either ridiculously good timing, or they got tipped off by one of the many other media outlets who have been working on this data for months.

uh oh, just last week they rebroadcasted one of their episode on the shell companies. Maybe that was random, maybe not.

The The Intercept diatribe(s) on this should be great.

True, Yglesia overstepped a bit, but I guess we'll find out by how much wherever the US participants get released

The CRA is sending in a full forensic team to investigate on behalf of Canadian interests I would assume the same for other countries. This is going to be a massive issue that has the potential to de-stabilize world markets if some of the early reporting is true.

Like we didn't know this was going on??

Seems like a bunch of faux outrage from the countries with people in them doing this. They know this is going on and don't do anything for a reason.

I think this guys take is more likely....

I wonder if they have a grad scheme for a new accountant

This is different, names are dropped

When you want to hide a lot of money it means you earn a lot of money, and

A singer, sport champion, a company, an actor that has his name published here could get some public hate and that is not good for their business.

If people like Jay-Z, Lebron or a major company like Apple are on this list it could cost them a lot of money, and those greedy bastards that avoid tax will cry if they lose money

It's funny how no one seems to really care because we all have known this was happening in one way or another. This is huge though. Many people are being named no one would have thought would be on there. Iceland's leader is being demanded to step down and massive rallies are planned. Over 1k Italian businessmen. An Irish and Norwegian bank. This is just starting