Mossack Fonseca is the Panama based law firm at the heart of the “Panama Papers” scandal. MF is a discreet outfit with a roster of big-name clients and a quiet reputation for hiding money from the tax collector.
Many western politicians, sport stars, and celebrities were named the 11 million pages of documents released by the International Consortium of Investigating Journalists (IVIJ) which parsed the data.
Jurgen Mossack is one of the two lawyers that founded the firm more than three decades ago. Mossack’s father was a Nazi serving with the Waffen-SS during WW II. The Mossack family moved to Panama in 1948, and old intelligence files showed the father had offered to spy for the CIA.
The other founder is Ramon Fonseca, whom got his law degree in Panama but also studied @ the London School of Economics and had mulled becoming a priest. Fonseca had a small business before he merged with Mossack.
The two partners established off-shore businesses by opening offices in the BVI. The law firm incorporated more than 113.000 off-shore enterprises offering tax evading structures.
When the British Virgin Islands (BVI) was forced to clamp down on some methods that had previously permitted anonymous ownership of companies, Mossack Fonseca moved business back to Panama and the Caribbean Island of Anguilla.
The law firm spent money to try to remove on-line references linking it money laundering and tax evasion. Brazilian state oil company Petrobraswas named as being one of the parties within a huge bribery scandal unfolding its involvement.
The Russians were also being accused of exchanging U.S. dollars to avoid the U.S. sanctions forced upon the country. Fonseca has also been the advisor to Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela since 2014.
But most notably, the fascist Ukrainian junta president Petro Poroshenko seems to be laundering his chocolate imperium’s profits through BVI companies in the Caribbean. Separate links also connected Lionel Messi’s involvement.
Mossack Fonseca is the third largest off-shore industry provider in the world. Imagine what the data from the top-2 companies would look like.
AFP / AA edited News 2016.
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