De Panama Papers zijn maandag grotendeels online gezet door het internationale journalistenconsortium dat onderzoek heeft gedaan naar belastingparadijzen.
Begin april werden de resultaten van dat onderzoek al naar buiten gebracht, dat in Nederland gebeurde door het Financieele Dagblad en Trouw.
Het gaat om een database van meer dan 200.000 vennootschappen in belastingparadijzen die vrij doorzoekbaar is.
De informatie is afkomstig van het Panamese juridische advieskantoor Mossack Fonseca.
Lees verder via de Bron: FOK.nl
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists publishes today a searchable database that strips away the secrecy of nearly 214,000 offshore entities created in 21 jurisdictions, from Nevada to Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands.
The data, part of the Panama Papers investigation, is the largest ever release of information about offshore companies and the people behind them. This includes, when available, the names of the real owners of those opaque structures.
The database also displays information about more than 100,000 additional offshore entities ICIJ had already disclosed in its 2013 Offshore Leaks investigation.
The new data that ICIJ is now making public represents a fraction of the Panama Papers, a trove of more than 11.5 million leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s top creators of hard-to-trace companies, trusts and foundations.
ICIJ is not publishing the totality of the leak, and it is not disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse. The database contains a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions, but it doesn’t disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents.
In all, the interactive application reveals more than 360,000 names of people and companies behind secret offshore structures. As the data are from leaked sources and not a standardized registry, there may be some duplication of names.
The reaction to the Panama Papers was immediate and viral.
Outraged citizens took to the streets in Reykjavik, Malta and London while the hashtag#panamapapers trended on Twitter for days after the story broke on April 3. The prime minister of Iceland resigned over the British Virgin Islands company he co-owned with his wife, while other world leaders scrambled to explain their secret holdings. It took UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron three days to publicly acknowledge he had profited from an investment fund, created by his father, that was incorporated in Panama and managed in the Bahamas. In Spain a minister resigned after being caught in a series of lies about his connections to offshore, and in Uruguay police arrested five individuals suspected of laundering money for a powerful Mexican drug cartel.
The Panama Papers underscore the fundamental injustices and inequalities created by the offshore system, media commentators and political leaders say.
Lees verder via de Bron: ICIJ
