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

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A

A Human Becoming

More than a Member
Audioboxer said:
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I want the pig story to be true only to validate that sign.
 
J

Jimrpg

Member
casiopao said:
Correct me if i am wrong here. Isnt ur PM Najib right now is facing heavy fire under IMDB bank corruption case? Is there no action like to pull him from his position there? As i remember seeing Mr Mahatir had been keep consolidating power to challenge Najib there.
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Been meaning to answer this the last couple of days.

He is facing a huge backlash from some people in Malaysia (ie non Umno supporters) as well as people who care enough overseas to report on it. But as with most things, people forget about it and move on.

There has been action to overthrow him but Najib has been quick to assert his authority over anything and everything. Essentially as long as he is PM and his supporters are all on the same page, there's not much anyone can do. Public pressure does nothing. Last year there was an attempt by the attorney general signing an arrest warrant for Najib over the money scandal but he was quickly sacked of his position and haven't heard from since. Numerous other top legal officers and people of political power were also sacked.

His reasons for taking the money obviously is for Umno to stay in power, using the money for political gain and buying votes in which he terms that the money will be used for the people.

They've tried to silence Mahathir by removing his son as Kedah's chief minister.

For anyone that wants a recap of the Najib money scandal I wrote a post about it last year on Neogaf. It's kind of old so you may want to start a new thread on that rather than replying to that one.

Can you believe that a PM took US$2bn put it through a shell company and then called it an investment on Petro Saudi (in which the investment all but evaporated) and then somehow US$700m winds up in his accounts as a 'donation' from a wealthy middle eastern benefactor? Cameron gets called out for 30k pounds of personal shares is not even in the same realm as this. The story on Four Corners in Australia got some traction with my friends in Australia but it will just disappear and people will move on to the next hot topic.
 
C

chadskin

Member
Malta's leaders turned to Mossack Fonseca five days after election
A Malta advisory firm began setting up Panama companies for senior members of Malta's Labour Party five days after they won power in the March 2013 election, leaked documents of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca show.

Malta's opposition called a national protest on Sunday over revelations in The Australian Financial Review last week that detailed how Malta's Energy Minister, Konrad Mizzi, and the prime minister's chief of staff, Keith Schembri, set up secret holdings in Panama and New Zealand linked to a Dubai bank account.
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F

forknknife

Banned
Worst thing about this is that, apparently, Mossack Fonseca is just the fifth biggest law firm specialized in this kind of fiscal evasive procedures in Panama. So just think about how many other firms murat exist in all the other tax havens combined and how many billions upon billions are being evaded around the worldworld while the general population is being fucked over.

And, to add insult to injury, here in Spain our politicians forced a fiscal amnesty program a few years ago by which all these thieves were able to legalize their situation without being accountable for all the money that has been robbed from us by means of tax evasion.

Of course, their argument was that, this way, at least we would be able to bring that money back to the country and finally draw some taxes from them but, as we are seeing now, many of these individuals were either friends with or politicians themselves.

We really need to start calling out all these shit tax haven countries for what they are. I think we should start boycotting any products from those countries as much as possible.
 
Square2015

Square2015

Member
Y!
Panama Papers reveal spies used Mossack Fonseca:
Berlin (AFP) - Secret agents from several countries, including intermediaries of the CIA, have used the services of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in order to "conceal" their activities, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday.

"Secret agents and their informants have made wide use of the company's services," wrote the newspaper, which obtained a massive stash of 11.5 million documents from the company that is sending shockwaves around the globe.

"Agents have opened shell companies to conceal their activities... Among them are close intermediaries of the CIA," the newspaper reported.

The Munich-based newspaper said Mossack Fonseca's clients included "several players" in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which saw senior US officials facilitate secret arms sales to Iran in a bid to secure the release of American hostages and fund Nicaragua's Contra rebels.

The Panama Papers also reveal that "current or former high-ranking officials of the secret services of at least three countries... Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Rwanda" are listed amongst the company's clients, the Sueddeutsche said.

Among them was Sheikh Kamal Adham, the former Saudi intelligence chief who died in 1999. Adham "spent the 1970s as one of the CIA's key intermediaries" in the Middle East, the daily said.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung received the huge stash of Mossack Fonseca documents from an anonymous source and shared them with more than 100 media groups through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

A week after the first revelations, the documents have shed light on how the world's rich and powerful have used offshore companies to stash their assets, forcing Iceland's prime minister to resign and putting pressure on a slew of other leaders around the world.
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F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
José Manuel Soria, Spain's minister of industry, energy and tourism -and by all means one of the most corrupt individuals of an already rotten cabinet-, has been outed by the Panama Papers as first director of an offshore company incorporated in Bahamas during the 90's.
 
A

AndyD

aka andydumi
Dartastic said:
Holy fucking shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
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That's not that surprising.

Another article I read said this type of activity can also be used by legitimate companies that have secret prototypes in other industries to work in secret without hinting at their plans. Think Apple trying to break into electric cars. This would let them funnel some money into a secret corporation that would then work independently and without obvious link to the parent.

Essentially any activity you don't want linked to your parent company or government can be funded and hidden away with one of these methods. And it can be for nefarious purposes or legitimate uses.
 
D

dabig2

Member
"Agents have opened shell companies to conceal their activities... Among them are close intermediaries of the CIA," the newspaper reported.

The Munich-based newspaper said Mossack Fonseca's clients included "several players" in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which saw senior US officials facilitate secret arms sales to Iran in a bid to secure the release of American hostages and fund Nicaragua's Contra rebels.
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I would love more info on this. Specifically names, dates, and money amounts.
 
U

uncleniccius

Member
Dirtyshubb said:
I honestly think that you have 2 types of Torry voters:

1 - young non poor people who have done well thanks to their parents being middle class and not struggling for money. They see that their life is fine and attribute it to the tories because 'they can't be that bad, my life is good' all while neglecting the benefits that they have had compared to others and also having no actual policies in mind that directly benefited them.

2 - well off people who think they deserve everything they got because of hard work, again ignoring the leg up they had. They also think poor people deserve it but realise they can't say that amongst most people.

I suppose all we can hope is teach the young voters that they are wrong and that the tories only help themselves and big business. For the well off, we need laws changed to prevent tax avoidance and all loopholes that help male the rich richer and the poor poorer but how do we do that when we have the current people in charge?

Only way I see is sustained protests that don't get forgotten a week later but convincing people to do that is hard since most can't be bothered to fight for their rights.
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You are painting with a very broad brush here.

The reason for why the tories do well is the fault of both the labour party and the tories. The first past the post system is a mess that makes big parties dominate, and makes it hard for smaller ones. Neither party has any interest in hurting their own seat numbers by introducing reform.

I honestly believe that if we had a well established party which was both socially liberal and moderately fiscally conservative they would do fantastically. The problem is a lack of realistic options in a first past the post system. A lot of tories are 'I'd rather them than labour' voters and vice versa - reform is needed for this to change. They attract a very wide range of voters in reality.
 
F

forknknife

Banned
Funky Papa said:
José Manuel Soria, Spain's minister of industry, energy and tourism -and by all means one of the most corrupt individuals of an already rotten cabinet-, has been outed by the Panama Papers as first director of an offshore company incorporated in Bahamas during the 90's.
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No man, didn't you hear? it's a conspiracy against him, somebody supplanted his persona and also his brother's.... 20 years ago... for some reason...

No, really, that's the excuse the guy is giving.
 
C

chadskin

Member
Top European countries call to end secrecy of shell companies
Europe's five leading economies called Thursday for a crackdown on tax havens, urging the G20 powers to end the secrecy of shell companies that enables tax evasion and money laundering.

In the strongest reaction yet to the leaked "Panama Papers," the finance ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain also proposed a blacklist of havens like Panama if they do not share corporate registry data with others.

They proposed establishing transnational registries that identify the beneficial owners of companies, trusts, foundations and other entities that had been able to hide from tax administrators and law enforcement.
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phisheep

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
uncleniccius said:
I honestly believe that if we had a well established party which was both socially liberal and moderately fiscally conservative they would do fantastically. The problem is a lack of realistic options in a first past the post system. A lot of tories are 'I'd rather them than labour' voters and vice versa - reform is needed for this to change. They attract a very wide range of voters in reality.
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I think there's every chance of this happening too, and maybe over the next five years. With both Labour and Conservative Parliamentary parties deeply split, something is going to give somewhere.

A big "Remain" vote in the EU referendum will effectively neuter the more unpleasant wing of the Tories, a big Labour loss in 2020 would effectively neuter the broad Left - that leaves the centrist part of both parties ripe for merger.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Spain's minister of industry, energy and tourism has finally resigned after the Panama Papers unveiled his involvement a complex network of offshore companies.
 
C

chadskin

Member
Kremlin says sorry to Goldman Sachs, German paper over Panama Papers slip-up
The Kremlin on Friday apologized to U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs and German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, saying aides had mistakenly informed President Vladimir Putin that the American bank owned the newspaper.

Putin, in a televised phone-in on Thursday, had repeated the erroneous information in comments he made about who he thought stood behind the leak of the Panama Papers which were handed to the German newspaper.

"It is more the error of those who prepared the briefing documents, my error," Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, told reporters.

"There was information there that had not been checked and rechecked again and we gave it to the president. We have apologized (to the bank) and we will also apologize to the publication."
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S

sphagnum

Banned
I don't think this stems directly from the Panama Papers, but Oxfam did a study about offshore tax dodging (link here):

US corporate giants such as Apple, Walmart and General Electric have stashed $1.4tn (£980bn) in tax havens, despite receiving trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

The sum, larger than the economic output of Russia, South Korea and Spain, is held in an “opaque and secretive network” of 1,608 subsidiaries based offshore, said Oxfam.

The charity’s analysis of the financial affairs of the 50 biggest US corporations comes amid intense scrutiny of tax havens following the leak of the Panama Papers.

...

Technology giant Apple, the world’s second biggest company, topped Oxfam’s league table, with some $181bn held offshore in three subsidiaries.

Boston-based conglomerate General Electric, which Oxfam said has received $28bn in taxpayer backing, was second with $119bn stored in 118 tax haven subsidiaries.

Computing firm Microsoft was third with $108bn, in a top 10 that also included pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer, Google’s parent company Alphabet and Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company not owned by an oil-producing state.

Oxfam contrasted the $1.4tn held offshore with the $1tn paid in tax by the top 50 US firms between 2008 and 2014.

It pointed out that the companies had also enjoyed a combined $11.2tn in federal loans, bailouts and loan guarantees during the same period.

Overall, the use of tax havens allowed the US firms to reduce their effective tax rate on $4tn of profits from the US headline rate of 35% to an average of 26.5% between 2008 and 2014.

The charity said this had helped firms spend billions on an “army” of lobbyists calling for greater state support in the form of loans, bailouts and guarantees, funded by taxpayers.

...

“For every $1 spent on lobbying, these 50 companies collectively received $130 in tax breaks and more than $4,000 in federal loans, loan guarantees and bailouts,” said Oxfam.

....
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The Guardian
 
R

Resident_UA

Member
Out 1 said:
Update: Vedomosti (Russia's equivalent to FT; country's best newspaper) and RBK (Russia's Bloomberg, I guess; owned by billionaire Prokhorov) are now reporting on the leak as well.
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Speaking of RBK, the offices of the company which they are part of were searched recently. Putin really doesn't waste any time.

Offices of ONEKSIM searched (RUSSIAN)

Harry Stewart said:
My Putin-loving family is gonna have an aneurysm trying to dismiss this as Western anti-Russian propaganda and lies when there's the Poroshenko info as well. Bah, who am I kidding, they'll find a way to rationalize it away.
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It didn't take them much time to rationalize it at all. Mainly ignored as US backed propaganda. Poroshenko part was not very interesting to them.

In Ukraine Poroshenko's ratings are already low as is so not much damage was done by these papers. He just dismissed it as his lawyers separating him from the company. Which is impossible to prove either way... The only reason why he's still in power (and why he got elected in the first place) is because people in Ukraine are scared of possible actions taken by Russia. He seemed like a safe choice that would piss off Russia the least and it's still the case. Too bad next elections are so far away...
 
C

chadskin

Member
The whistleblower behind the papers sent a manifesto to the Süddeutsche Zeitung: http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/572c897a5632a39742ed34ef/

In the end, thousands of prosecutions could stem from the Panama Papers, if only law enforcement could access and evaluate the actual documents. ICIJ and its partner publications have rightly stated that they will not provide them to law enforcement agencies. I, however, would be willing to cooperate with law enforcement to the extent that I am able.

That being said, I have watched as one after another, whistleblowers and activists in the United States and Europe have had their lives destroyed by the circumstances they find themselves in after shining a light on obvious wrongdoing. Edward Snowden is stranded in Moscow, exiled due to the Obama administration’s decision to prosecute him under the Espionage Act. For his revelations about the NSA, he deserves a hero’s welcome and a substantial prize, not banishment. Bradley Birkenfeld was awarded millions for his information concerning Swiss bank UBS—and was still given a prison sentence by the Justice Department. Antoine Deltour is presently on trial for providing journalists with information about how Luxembourg granted secret "sweetheart" tax deals to multi-national corporations, effectively stealing billions in tax revenues from its neighbour countries. And there are plenty more examples.
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D

Deleted member 13876

Unconfirmed Member
That article is probably interesting enough for its own thread.
 
C

chadskin

Member
The ICIJ published the Panama Papers database today: https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/#_ga=1.35749222.715815666.1459707834 / alternative link: https://www.occrp.org/en/panamapapers/database.html

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists publishes today a searchable database that strips away the secrecy of nearly 214,000 offshore entities created in 21 jurisdictions, from Nevada to Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands.

The data, part of the Panama Papers investigation, is the largest ever release of information about offshore companies and the people behind them. This includes, when available, the names of the real owners of those opaque structures.

The database also displays information about more than 100,000 additional offshore entities ICIJ had already disclosed in its 2013 Offshore Leaks investigation.
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ICIJ is not publishing the totality of the leak, and it is not disclosing raw documents or personal information en masse. The database contains a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions, but it doesn’t disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents.
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P

Phantast2k

Member
Panama Papers: Emma Watson named in latest offshore data release

Emma Watson, the Harry Potter star, has been forced to deny avoiding tax after becoming the latest high-profile name listed in the Panama Papers offshore data leak.

The actress, currently on a gap year from acting to campaign for feminism, is listed as a beneficiary of a company based in the British Virgin Islands.

However, Watson, who this week called on new London mayor Sadiq Khan to put a statue of a suffragette outside Parliament, says the account was set up for the sole purpose of "protecting her anonymity and safety".

...
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https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/12126782
 
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