Home > Samples > Panama Archives Offshore Leak Essay Sample

Panama Archives Offshore Leak Essay Sample

June 29th, 2016

Panama Offshore Leak Essay Sample

It’s on the 3rd of April, 2016 when astounding and shocking news had suddenly shaken the world. A firm, based in Panama, known as “Mossack Fonsec” had the biggest information leak ever dated in history. The Panamanian law firm, famous for selling offshore shell companies, practicing corruption and shady business got exposed  to the entire world. Having the offices all over the globe, selling shell companies took place mostly in Zurich, London, and Hong Kong, providing “absolute confidentiality” to both a client and customer.

But despite the years of existence and successful clandestine business schemes the disaster was inevitable. Among the records there was classified information on mafia group leaders, criminals, tycoons, billionaires, entertainers, athletes, drug barons, socialites and others. More than 200 politicians were also mentioned on  Panama Papers leak list, proving the fact that the firm assisted the officials in tax evasion, sanctions machinations and money laundry procedures.

More than 11.5 million papers and information on more than 12 current and former leaders, including Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, pro-Western President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, Pakistan and Iceland leaders prove the large scale of the leak. Taking into consideration all the names on the list, one thing is certain, such business is not legal and what is more, the revealed names of the people on the list will have to bear responsibility as set forth by laws.

The entity responsible for the information leak asked to remain anonymous and the information disclosure was published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in a German newspaper, called “Süddeutsche Zeitung, it was also issued in BBC newspaper a year later. More than 2.6 terabytes of data information, dated from 1977 to 2015 shows that Panamanian firm worked with more than 14,000 bank facilities, law firms, company entrepreneurs and other businessmen to set up clandestine companies, infrastructures and trusts for potential customers.

“Panama documents” or “Panama archives” are the records that were found during the investigation on the offshore business conducted by people with ties to the President of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. Sergei Roldugin, a close friend of Vladimir Putin is in the center of the leak scoop. According to the records, hundreds millions dollars were sent from Cyprus “daughter” VTB bank to RCB Bank. There were also numerous money transactions connected to “Gazprom” and “Rosneft” shares. More than 2 billion dollars were sent through shell banks belonging to Putin’s associates. Still, there are a lot of companies, the true owners of which remain unknown and not found.

To sum up, Panama leak amounts to more documents than the combined total of Lux Leaks, Wikileaks Cablegate, Swiss Leaks and Offshore Leaks due to the great number of various e-mails, photo files, pdf files and its scale.

References:

  1. Rash, W. (2016). Panama Papers Breach Reveals Astonishingly Lax Network Security. [online] Eweek.com. Available at: http://www.eweek.com/security/panama-papers-breach-reveals-astonishingly-lax-network-security.html [Accessed 23 May 2016].
  2. ICIJ, (2016). The Panama Papers: An Introduction. [online] ICIJ. Available at: http://panamapapers.icij.org/video [Accessed 21 May 2016].
  3. ICIJ 2, (2016). Stairway to Tax Heaven. [online] Panamapapers.icij.org. Available at: https://panamapapers.icij.org/stairway_tax_heaven_game/ [Accessed 21 May 2016].
  4. Ronderos, M. and Lipstas, A. (2016). The Investigative Journalism Collaboration That Produced the Panama Papers. [online] Open Society Foundations. Available at: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/investigative-journalism-collaboration-produced-panama-papers [Accessed 21 May 2016].
  5. Sambrook, R. (2016). Panama Papers: the nuts and bolts of a massive international investigation. [online] Newstatesman.com. Available at: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2016/04/panama-papers-nuts-and-bolts-massive-international-investigation [Accessed 21 May 2016].
  6. Yong, W. (2016). Perspective: Panama Papers and ‘responsible’ journalism. [online] Aljazeera.com. Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2016/04/perspective-panama-papers-responsible-journalism-160413130112792.html [Accessed 21 May 2016].
  7. Krieger, M. and Dad, T. (2016). Are Corporate Gatekeepers Protecting Western Elites from the Leaked Panama Papers?. [online] Liberty Blitzkrieg. Available at: https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/04/04/are-corporate-gatekeepers-protecting-western-elites-from-the-leaked-panama-papers/ [Accessed 25 Apr. 2016].
Comments are closed.