By: Corey Savard
The biggest leak of sensitive data ever unfolded yesterday when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released telling documents of world leaders and influential figures stashing their cash in overseas tax havens through Panama City, Pan.-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Members of Russian PM Vladimir Putin’s inner circle as well as Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, whom’s revelation has sparked protests in his country’s capital are implicated in what Edward Snowden is calling the“biggest leak in the history of data journalism.” Other notable names in initial documents included are actor Jackie Chan, soccer star Lionel Messi, African dictators, and drug lords with many more soon to follow in the coming days and perhaps months as part of 11.5 million leaked documents that dwarf both Wikileaks and the Edward Snowden leaks combined.
It started a little over a year ago when a “John Doe” contacted German newspaper Süeddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and offered them a plethora of internal documents formerly held secret by Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in selling offshore property in Panama, a well-known tax haven, which world leaders have utillized to escape paying taxes in their own country that should have gone to schools, hospitals and public services. All while wilfully deceiving their own citizens. The anonymous source who leaked the 2.2 terrabytes of emails, documents and pdfs said his motive was to “make these crimes public.”
However, offshore companies are not illegal as they work through loopholes created by trade deals, for Mossack Fonseca specifically, the free trade deal passed by the U.S. with Panama in 2011, which Democratic primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders warned of the country’s bank secrecy laws and unwillingness to work with foreign investigations that would lead to the international event we see developing.
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