The exceptional leak of 11.5m files and 2.6 terabytes of information from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca known as panama papers oblige us to learn and know more about its topology and political history?
In my early childhood days the legendary Panama I was aware of, was refreshing goodness, soothing mildness a golden tobacco product nevertheless notorious unfiltered strong cigarette.
But the tarnished records which were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is from Panama, located in the continent of Central America, which became an independent state in 1903, after gaining its sovereignty from Spain. Covering 74,340 square kilometers of land and 1,080 square kilometers of water, it is the 119th largest nation in the world with a total area of 75,420 square kilometers, with a thin population of 3,510,045 approx.
The documents shows that twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.
Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, who has immediately resigned assuming his moral authority, but our faithful brothers denied any wrong doing and are still insisting to continue.
A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin, a strong believer in equality, whose best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.
No doubt using offshore structures is entirely legal as there are many legitimate reasons for doing so, but generally crook business people typically put their assets offshore to defend them from “raids” It is used by criminals, to get around hard currency restrictions. Others who use offshore are for reasons of tax evasion, inheritance and estate planning.
The governments should try to do something about this if it wants to check the criminals and money launderers not to take the advantage of anonymous company structure by setting up central register that will reveal the name of the beneficial owners of offshore companies.
Mossack Fonseca the law firm who helped these shell companies in their incorporation says it complies with anti-money-laundering laws and carries out thorough due diligence on all its clients, but it regrets any misuse of its services and tries actively to prevent it. The firm says it cannot be blamed for failings by intermediaries, who include banks, law firms and accountants. Honestly all these institutions are moreover equally responsible for this monetary carnage.
Israrul Haque
Jeddah
