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The Panama Papers - Massive leak of secret documents about offshore companies

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Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
The Spanish tax office is already investigating, too, which is probably an euphemism for "oh fuck oh fuck -let's bury it by putting some borderline suicidal, top-side micromanaged inspectors on this- oh fuck oh fuck".
 

HolySheep

Neo Member
So far, nothing on Norwegian individuals who partook the whole thing. But I wonder if they are protected or if what.

Skatteetaten( Same as IRS) are working on obtaining the documents:

http://e24.no/naeringsliv/panama-pa...-paa-aa-faa-tilgang-til-dokumenetene/23651675

DNB, Norways biggest bank is implicated in this and if the higher ups had any knowledge theres political pressure for reprisals:

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/...-ledelsen-hvis-de-visste-om-dette/a/23651603/

If not, heads might very well roll anyway.

http://www.dagbladet.no/2016/04/04/nyheter/innenriks/panama_papers/dnb/utenriks/43743767/
 

Minamu

Member
Anyone know which banks are in the top ten?

I saw that David Cameron's (british prime minister) own father is highlighted in this. I wonder how that'll go over dinner. That said, it could be a normal off shore company he has but what are the chances?
 

Donos

Member
The Spanish tax office is already investigating, too, which is probably an euphemism for "oh fuck oh fuck -let's bury it by putting some borderline suicidal, top-side micromanaged inspectors on this- oh fuck oh fuck".

Watched the big short yesterday and with things this large and so much money involved, almost everybody has some dirt on their fingers and everybody is going to cover up as much as possible.

Some minor heads will roll but nothing is going to change.
 

chadskin

Member
UK tax officials seek access to huge leak of Mossack Fonseca papers
UK tax investigators have written to media organisations, including the Guardian, to request access to the huge trove of 11.5m secret offshore files leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
In the UK, Vicky Ranson of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), said tax officials were keen to obtain the data. In a letter to the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, she said HMRC was “relentlessly pursuing tax evasion by UK citizens and residents” and wanted“to ensure that tax cheats have no safe havens in which to hide undeclared income”.

Ranson, director of HMRC’s risk and intelligence service, added: “I am very keen to obtain this data from you so we can cross-reference it with our own extensive data, to see whether there is information that we do not have and which could be useful as part of our extensive investigations into offshore tax evasion.”

In a statement, the Guardian said: “We have received the request from HMRC and will consult with our international partners.”
 

diamount

Banned
The Spanish tax office is already investigating, too, which is probably an euphemism for "oh fuck oh fuck -let's bury it by putting some borderline suicidal, top-side micromanaged inspectors on this- oh fuck oh fuck".

I recall in a previous post you said a member of the Spanish monarchy is named, where do they get their revenue from anyway?
 

ElFly

Member
Hahaha how come the only Chilean named so far is some old football player?

Given the recent corruption scandals I d thought several politicians would appear.
 

Tugatrix

Member
A portuguese surface among the names, go on I'm sure there are more

tumblr_nikh3kvuPD1s3h43ko1_r1_500.gif
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I recall in a previous post you said a member of the Spanish monarchy is named, where do they get their revenue from anyway?

The royal family receives a relatively modest amount of money from the general state budget to cover the expenses related to their "work" (the king, the queen and their children act more or less as the nation's highest ambassadors). With that said, it's all but certain that Juan Carlos I has made an absurd amount of money from various and obscure means.

There are veiled accusations of embezzlement and it's all but certain that the former king made a fortune from kickbacks, as he acted as a fixer for countless high profile business deals in the Middle East and Latin America.

Interestingly enough, his aunt owned a shell company in Panama that was incorporated roughly coinciding with the day king Juan Carlos I was crowned and remained active until he adbicated after a number of scandals that resulted in the crowning of his son, the current king Felipe VI. This suggests that either she acted on behalf of her nephew, stashing his ill-gained fortune, and/or had to close shop when she realized that his nephew could no longer protect her.

Either way, fuckery abounds.
 

Harmen

Member
I really hope the legal systems of all countries are going to think about adjusting the system to prevent shit like this. Because as of now, I think all of this is actually a legal means to evade taxes.
 

ty_hot

Member
Just a matter of time. Unless they buy the whole judiciary and legislative (like they have done to an extent so far).
Haha ok, except that there is no proof at all of what you are claiming. If they would be in this leak their names would appear faster than Putin. Also, UOL has a list of parties involved: no PT at all. The imaculate Sergio Guerra is yet again a champion 🏆
 
I really hope the legal systems of all countries are going to think about adjusting the system to prevent shit like this. Because as of now, I think all of this is actually a legal means to evade taxes.
If it's anything like FATCA, it will probably just make the lives of everyday expats more expensive and difficult while doing little to prevent those with the means to get away with tax evasion from doing so. Several of my American friends here in Switzerland have relinquished their nationality because most banks want nothing to do with them since FATCA came into effect (which sucks because most people need a bank account to, you know, live). I agree with the sentiment, but I have little hope it will carried out in a manner that will prevent corruption at this level.
 
Haha ok, except that there is no proof at all of what you are claiming. If they would be in this leak their names would appear faster than Putin. Also, UOL has a list of parties involved: no PT at all. The imaculate Sergio Guerra is yet again a champion 🏆

The papers haven't been fully revealed yet. Also, the crimes commited by those two were in Brazil and it's no surprise both are being investigated (and Dilma has an impeachment process on her). I know you are pro PT, just don't ignore the facts, please.
 

Arnie7

Banned
These people have all the money they could ever need. Why go to such elaborate steps just to avoid tax. They are never going to run out anyway. Sick sociopaths.

They are scumbags of the highest orders. And they have the gall to impose austerity and tax on normal people who can barley make ends meat.

Face it we live in a world where someone is "too big to go to jail".
 

Mr Git

Member
Is this the first solid evidence against Cameron senior regarding this? That he flits money away into tax havens has been sort of known and sardonically mentioned for years.
 

ty_hot

Member
The papers haven't been fully revealed yet. Also, the crimes commited by those two were in Brazil and it's no surprise both are being investigated (and Dilma has an impeachment process on her). I know you are pro PT, just don't ignore the facts, please.
The only fact is the impeachment process. They are not being investigated (at least legally, which doesn't seem to be a problem to tap their phones and bring a profile on the whole family, up to third generation, even though there is no crime or anything concrete to be investigated at the moment).

I'm sure someone from PT probably has something in this leak, but it really made me laugh to see that the first list of parties does not include it.

Our political system is fucked up from the top to the bottom.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
There was that one article that mentioned they are "filtering" with a Western slant, which is why we're seeing focus on Putin, former dictators, and small fry Westerners. Any truth to it?
 

jelly

Member
Anyone know which banks are in the top ten?

I saw that David Cameron's (british prime minister) own father is highlighted in this. I wonder how that'll go over dinner. That said, it could be a normal off shore company he has but what are the chances?

I think he is dead so Cameron will have a ready made excuse, and too upsetting which would be total bollocks but just watch.
 

chadskin

Member
There was that one article that mentioned they are "filtering" with a Western slant, which is why we're seeing focus on Putin, former dictators, and small fry Westerners. Any truth to it?

The leaked data is structured as follows: Mossack Fonseca created a folder for each shell firm. Each folder contains e-mails, contracts, transcripts, and scanned documents. In some instances, there are several thousand pages of documentation. First, the data had to be systematically indexed to make searching through this sea of information possible. To this end, the Süddeutsche Zeitung used Nuix, the same program that international investigators work with. Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ uploaded millions of documents onto high-performance computers. They applied optical character recognition (OCR) to transform data into machine-readable and easy to search files. The process turned images – such as scanned IDs and signed contracts – into searchable text. This was an important step: it enabled journalists to comb through as large a portion of the leak as possible using a simple search mask similar to Google.

The journalists compiled lists of important politicians, international criminals, and well-known professional athletes, among others. The digital processing made it possible to then search the leak for the names on these lists. The "party donations scandal" list contained 130 names, and the UN sanctions list more than 600. In just a few minutes, the powerful search algorithm compared the lists with the 11.5 million documents.
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3c3495adf4/
 

Famassu

Member
There was that one article that mentioned they are "filtering" with a Western slant, which is why we're seeing focus on Putin, former dictators, and small fry Westerners. Any truth to it?
While we had news about Putin (his is a juicy story, finally opening up details about his inner circles for everyone to see), there were also big headlines about one of our biggest banks being involved and we have information about the police preparing to investigate these files with them being certain they will find evidence of tax fraud. So no, the "others" are not just going to be a focus.
 
If there's anything the global financial crisis and the great recession has taught me is that uber-rich and powerful white collar criminals like those on wall street, in politics and these scumbags finally brought to light by the Panama Papers will be brought to justice, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, imprisoned and ordered to pay restitution in full to those individuals and institutions they have cheated, stolen from or done harm to./sarcasm.

NOW can we prosecute these corrupt bastards? At the very least, can we at least force them to pay taxes? I'm excited to see who from the U.S. will be named and shamed, but I doubt jack shit will be done about it.
 

AlphaDump

Gold Member
The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.


keep in mind this is only the fourth largest firm of its type....


I'd love to see how this all ties together. In recent years we've had the countrywide/bank of america/mortgage backed securities fraud, LIBOR, flash crash, etc.


So many events, that in aggregate point to something far more alarming. It's about time we globalize journalism to help combat globalized corruption. All on the backs of peoples ability to work and retire.
 
Can you search the data? I haven't seen anything about my country, Dominican Republic, but we are too corrupt to not have some level of involvement.
 

chadskin

Member
On Belgium:
In Belgium, 732 Belgians and numerous foreigners living in the country are seeing their legal arrangements laid bare. “This includes the filthy rich, artists, the nobility and inherited money, doctors and pharmacists, accountants and tax experts, the kings of the textile industry, academics and several media figures. In addition there are also diamond merchants, captains of industry and several well known habitual criminals,” states Le Soir.

They are mainly grouped together in the Brussels region, Antwerp, Flemish Brabant and then, below these locations come West Flanders, Walloon Brabant, East Flanders and Hainaut. There are cases in every province and of offshore company shareholders within no less than 207 of the 589 districts of the country, Le Soir goes on to say, whilst anticipating further revelations from Monday onwards.
http://www.brusselstimes.com/belgiu...welve-heads-of-state-and-732-belgians-exposed
 

Keasar

Member
One of Sweden's biggest banks are one of the top banks in this mess. They're even scrambling for damage control on facebook now, answering people's statuses where they are mentioned with tags xD Defending their sorry asses (saying they're all legit and they have stopped the illegal shit many years ago, which our newspapers have kind of debunked already). Fucking sad :/

Sweden's IRS has formally requested/demanded the names of the 400+ Swedes mentioned in the leaks for some investigations. So at least someone is taking it rather seriously here.

Motherfuckers...
 

Frodo

Member
I want to see some heads rolling because of this. I want other companies to be hacked and more documents to be leaked. I'll be laughing at the top of my broke ass lungs.

Perched to see David Cameron's father mentioned in this. Wouldn't it be nice to see Mr. Cameron involved in tax evasion when he is busy as hell stealing money from the poor and disabled for all his austerity measures?
 

Horns

Member
Curious to see if any thing comes up about Romney. There were claims that he hid his money offshore and avoided taxes/
 

2700

Unconfirmed Member
I want to see some heads rolling because of this. I want other companies to be hacked and more documents to be leaked. I'll be laughing at the top of my broke ass lungs.

Perched to see David Cameron's father mentioned in this. Wouldn't it be nice to see Mr. Cameron involved in tax evasion when he is busy as hell stealing money from the poor and disabled for all his austerity measures?
Again, his father died years ago and his use of off-shore accounts has been reported previously.

Nothing will come of this.
 
I read somewhere this morning that this leak was the first in a total of fourteen days of leaks. Can anyone corroborate that?

Related - Wikileaks is poised to just dump everything and make it searchable, if that hasn't been reported yet.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Russian PR game is pathetic and purely for the internal potato class. Total Streisand Effect. At least everyone else had the common sense to react in more cautious ways (except Iceland premier on Swedish TV lol).
 

Pedrito

Member

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
NOW can we prosecute these corrupt bastards? At the very least, can we at least force them to pay taxes? I'm excited to see who from the U.S. will be named and shamed, but I doubt jack shit will be done about it.

A great deal of this will be perfectly legal depending on countries and indeed enabled by specific legal and tax provisions created by the people on the list.
 
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