by Thinker
Hillary Clinton didn’t win, and so corruption is coming to and END Under MAGA!!!
MANHATTAN (CN) – Three years after the leak of the Panama Papers exposed a worldwide network of tax-avoiding shell companies, federal prosecutors brought charges Tuesday against four men tied to the law firm Mossack Fonseca. Obtained by the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung from an anonymous source, the 2015 data dump is considered history’s biggest leak, laying bare in 11.5 million files how people around the world, including world leaders of the U.K., Iceland and Russia, shuffled their assets into tax havens.
The nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists partnered with media companies in more than 70 countries to pick apart the once confidential documents, embarrassing among others the inner circles of Russian President Vladimir Putin and former British Prime Minister David Cameron. In a tangled 67-page indictment, U.S. prosecutors charged four men tied to the firm. The ones captured by authorities are Dirk Brauer, a 54-year-old German investment advisor for Mossfon Asset Management; Richard Gaffey, a 74-year-old U.S. accountant; and Harald Joachim von der Goltz, an 81-year-old German-born client.
Mossack Fonseca attorney Ramses Owens, a 50-year-old from Panama, remains at large.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said Tuesday that all are under indictment in New York.
“For decades, the defendants, employees and a client of global law firm Mossack Fonseca, allegedly shuffled millions of dollars through:
www.courthousenews.com/us-charge…ers-probe/
The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities.
The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were created by, and taken from, Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked in 2015 by an anonymous source. The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials that had previously been kept private. While offshore business entities are legal (see Offshore Magic Circle), reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.
“John Doe”, the whistleblower who leaked the documents to German journalist Bastian Obermayer from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), remains anonymous, even to the journalists who worked on the investigation. “My life is in danger”, he told them. In a May 6 statement, John Doe cited income inequality as the reason for his action, and said he leaked the documents “simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described”. He added that he had never worked for any government or intelligence agency and expressed willingness to help prosecutors if granted immunity from prosecution. After SZ verified that the statement did in fact come from the source for the Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) posted the full document on its website.
Corruption at the very top not in jail, while those at the bottom are already serving time…no justice…no peace!!!
In addition to the much-covered business dealings of British prime minister David Cameron and Icelandic prime minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the leaked documents also contain identity information about the shareholders and directors of 214,000 shell companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, as well as some of their financial transactions. Much of this information does not show anything more than prudent financial management. It is generally not against the law (in and of itself) to own an offshore shell company, although offshore shell companies may sometimes be used for illegal purposes.
The journalists on the investigative team found business transactions by many important figures in world politics, sports and art. Many of these transactions are quite legal. Since the data is incomplete, questions remain in many other cases; still others seem to clearly indicate ethical if not legal impropriety.
Some disclosures:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers