All the updates concerning Panama Papers, the largest leak about corruption in the world will be posted here


Links to get you familiar with the discussion:

https://www.google.com/search?q=panama+
http://www.bbc.com/news/world
https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html



Panama paper Vs Saraki, read https://www.nairaland.com/3028446/panamapapers-hidden-family-assets-saraki

Explaining Panama Papers to a lay man

In business, you can avoid taxes by investing in something. If a company makes one million dollars, but spends 500,000 on investing in new technology for their product or something like that, they're only taxed from the remaining 500,000 because that's all of their "profit." (I'm not a businessman so I'm not sure on the complete legality of all the kinds of spending but I think this is a basic summary). This is all normal and fine; all companies require investing in order to grow their company.

So a company in Panama basically made a business in creating fake businesses. Companies could "invest" million of dollars and then it wouldn't be taxed, because according to legal documents it isn't profit, it's an "investment," which is untaxable, and then they would get their money back from the fake business. So imagine if that $500,000 of investments from my above example was fake, and after awhile 90% of the money was given back to the business (I'm assuming the Panamian company took a cut of the money as payment). 2.6 TB of data in total, over 11 million documents and over 200,000 fake companies. According to the website that published the news of the leak, they were contacted by an anonymous source with encrypted files with the data sometime in 2015. Here's am exerpt from the article:

Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the world. These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business dealings, no matter how shady.
Apparently there's several trillion dollars of money that should've been taxed and wasnt. Not sure if that means trillions that should've been taxed off of, or trillions of dollars of straight tax money, but either way it's a LOT.

Many political leaders (many seem to be in the Middle East), and celebrities are involved as well. To prevent any one person from being blamed for the leak, hundreds of news organizations are going to release further full details tonight (that's what Ive heard, not sure how true it is) but the list apparently has thousands of people/companies on it. There's 11 million documents though, and even though hundreds of journalists have been going through the data for months, there's still information that has yet to come to light.

This goes much farther than tax evasion, and includes Syrian war crimes, human trafficking, and more.

A massive leak of documents that exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies.
The leak also provides details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.
Malta's Konrad Mizzi is mentioned among them.
The cache of 11.5 million records shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.
These are among the findings of a yearlong investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations.

Panama Papers on Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers

James Ibori is listed, awaiting more details...Though looks like already known information.

It does show some of the most powerful people in respective countries implicated.
Kojo Annan, son of Kofi Annan amongst others.

Just reading through it now on BBC, I must confess I wasn't surprise though.

Corruption everywhere.

I am sure Nigerians will be well represented. You cannot do much with business men apart from telling the to pay up back taxes.
The politicians though, all money much be seized.

Russia boot lickers will connect this to the CIA in 3...2...1.

Why did you leave Ibori out from the show?

David Cameron's father and senior Tory figures named in Panama Paper

Who are the sporting figures involved in the Panama Papers?
There's more embarrassment for FIFA as documents from a Panamanian law firm reveals offshore financial dealings.

A number of sporting figures have been named alongside public officials and world leaders in the Panama Papers, one of the biggest data leaks ever recorded.

The leak, which comes from a law firm based in Panama, contained 2.6 terabytes of data and over 11 million files, implicating world leaders, political figures, and a number of people from the sports world.

The documents look set to make a bad few months for FIFA even worse, as Juan Pedro Damiani, a key member of the governing body's ethics committee, is under preliminary investigation.

Damiani, one of Uruguay's richest men and the chairman of Montevideo-based club Peñarol, is shown in the leak to have ties to three men named in the ethics scandal which has dogged FIFA.

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Damiani's law firm has dealings with seven offshore companies linked to Eugenio Figueredo, the former FIFA vice-president who has been charged by authorities in the United States with with fraud and money laundering.

Damiaini's firm is also believed to be linked to an offshore company owned by Argentine nationals Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who are facing charges of corruption and bribery relating to broadcast rights.

Lionel Messi and his father were among the sporting figures whose names also appear in the documents, attached to a company called Mega Star Enterprises, which was referenced in the Mossack Fonseca files.

The Argentine footballer has already faced an investigation into his financial dealings in Spain alongside his father Jorge Messi, and they are set to stand trial in May of this year.



However, Messi is reportedly set to sue Spanish paper El Confidencial over the claims, something which the Spanish publication themselves have confirmed.

The ICIJ also state that the documents contain "the names of nearly 20 high-profile soccer players, past and present, representing some of the globe’s best-known professional football clubs, including Barcelona, Manchester United and Real Madrid", as well as "current or former owners of at least 20 major soccer clubs, including Internazionale Milano and Boca Juniors".

Outside of football, the ICIJ state that the names of at least five golfers, as well as a number of NHL players, appear in the documents.

In India, The Indian Express was part of the investigation and has reported that many Indian industrialists and celebrities, including actors Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, DLF owner K.P. Singh and Vinod Adani (Gautam Adani’s elder brother), are named in the documents.

Enouwem:
Why float a foreign company, why go all the way to Panama to register it?
The two big draws that offshore entities in jurisdictions such as British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Seychelles and more specifically Panama, offer are: secrecy of information relating to the ultimate beneficiary owner and zero tax on income generated.
In fact, in Panama, individuals can ask for bearer shares, where the owner’s name is not mentioned anywhere. Besides, it costs little or nothing to set up an entity abroad. The Registered Agent charges a few hundred dollars to incorporate an entity. It doesn’t take much time to incorporate one either. Companies are available off-the-shelf and can be registered in a couple of days.

No wonder!

PANAMA PAPERS: WHO ARE THE REAL VICTIMS OF TAX AVOIDANCE AND EVASION?

For as long as companies and individuals hide their wealth in offshore firms, developing countries will continue to lose money that could provide basic public services to help lift people out of poverty, experts say.

On Sunday night, 11.5 million secret documents, alleged to be connected to Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, were leaked after an anonymous source passed them to the German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The files show the myriad ways that the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes.

A host of celebrities, British politicians and the global rich are implicated in the leak. Some of the most high-profile names include the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko; Ex-prime minister of Iraq, Ayad Allawi; and the former President of Sudan, Ahmad Ali al-Mirghani.

Some newspapers have called Sigmunder Gunlaugsson, the former Prime Minister of Iceland, who resigned today, the “first victim of the Panama papers.”

But experts and charities have warned that the game of tax avoidance and evasion does not only involve the elite. The true, unwitting victims are the 9.3 billion people worldwide whose net worth amounts to less than $1 million and are categorised as part of the “Everyone Else” in the Tax Justice Network’s table of global wealth.

“It abuses human rights,” John Christensen, director and co-founder of the U.K.-based Tax Justice Network, tells Newsweek: “The victims are ordinary people, like you and I. It goes back to the simple rule of law—if the rich and powerful pay less tax, then the rest of us end up paying more. And there is evidence of that, look at what has happened in Britain. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we see an increase in VAT and we lose much needed public services.”

Global efforts to help developing countries, such as Nigeria and Malawi, are also seriously hindered by tax avoidance. This occurs because tax avoiders often route money through countries that they know have unfair tax treaties—which also tend to be the poorest. They are left with little right to tax this money, meaning they have less to spend on education, healthcare and safe roads.
This “hemorrhage” of wealth seriously outweighs what they receive in foreign aid.

In its simplest form, this manipulation involves a corporation working in a developing country setting up a subsidiary to their company in a tax haven. Then, they sell their product at an low price to this subsidiary, which enables them to owe minimal tax to that country. Finally, their subsidiary in the tax haven sells the product at the market price, for comparatively huge profits coupled with a low tax rate—or none at all.

In other words, corporations manipulate prices to avoid paying taxes and the result sees the country with the unfair tax system plunging further into poverty because they are unable to feed their own economies. In the case of Africa, this practice is estimated to account for 60 per cent of the nation’s capital flight. A massive “hemorrhage.”

Last year, Oxfam launched a campaign in which it blasted tax dodging as “a corporate plague” and it has continued to fight the cause.
Malawi is one of the world’s poorest countries, with half of its 16 million people living in poverty.
A spokesman tells Newsweek: “Tax revenue that should be helping to fund public services in Malawi and other poor countries is disappearing at an alarming rate.

“As much as 30 per cent of all African financial wealth is estimated to be held offshore in tax havens, costing an estimated $14billion in lost tax revenues every year.
“This is enough monmoney to pay for healthcare for mothers and children that could save four million children's lives a year and employ enough teachers to get every African child into school.”

Raymond Baker, the Director of non-profit organization Global Financial Integrity, based in Washington, has called this exchange of money across borders the “ugliest chapter in global economic affairs since slavery.”

“Nigeria has probably experienced the greatest illegal outflow as a percentage of gross domestic product. Here we have an oil-rich country of 140 million people with 70 percent of its population— that’s 100 million people—living on $1 to $2 a day,” Baker said during a conference in Washington last year.

“Congo has had the longest rip-off of any country, going on for two centuries now. The best available estimate of incremental deaths in Congo, above normal mortality rates, since 2000 is 4.5 million. Illicit money flowing out of poor countries kills people.”

In short, for every major company that is not paying its fair share of tax, there are scores of teachers and nurses that cannot be employed, roads that cannot be repaired, schools that cannot be built, and hospitals without lifesaving equipment. And that is in the already wealthy countries.

The global nature of the tax avoidance game has even bigger consequences in developing nations where the missing tax dollars could be used to improve basic infrastructure needs such as roads, healthcare and education, allowing these countries to one day become self-sufficient and no longer dependent on international aid.

Panama Papers map of the countries involved.

Naija must sha belong

https://briankilmartin.cartodb.com/viz/54ddb5c0-f80e-11e5-9a9c-0e5db1731f59/embed_map

*I have to modify and bring in some new updates to the front page*

There's a huge backlash that the Panama Papers have been tampered and is been made to implicate only people that the "US Government" dislikes


Selective Leaks Of The #Panama Papers Create Huge Blackmail Potential. “Smear People the U.S. Dislikes”

Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/selective-leaks-of-the-panama-papers-create-huge-blackmail-potential-smear-people-the-u-s-dislikes/5518635

Panama Papers: Iceland PM Gunnlaugsson urged to resign amid Mossack Fonseca data leak

Ok, Putin is guilty-just by association. Total non-sense

Missy89:
Russia boot lickers will connect this to the CIA in 3...2...1.

Idiot is that all you've to say?

Human shit!

Tkester2:




Idiot is that all you've to say?

Human shit!

Why the insult

OBAGADAFFI:


Why the insult

He deserves more.

Tkester2:


He deserves more.

Missy89 is female. Trust me, I have her picture.

cyprus000:
[size=13pt]
Baba, i understand how u feel about this zombies, but try and tune down the insult.

[/size]

My man, I honestly wish I can tune it down, but this guy missy89 is such an annoying bastard. I can't honestly figure out how a living being will willingly devout his life to lying and misrepresenting obvious facts.

Just take for example, the leaks today from that dubious so called panama leaks - This is a leak supposedly made by ICIJ (for whatever nonsense that means), the leak has nothing to do with Vladimir Putin, in fact even the so called Putin's associate is not even his direct friend, but, a friend of Putin's friend, and by the way only one person was mentioned that has something remotely directly to do with Putin, and this involves an amount a state governor in the poorest state in a remote country like Nigeria can pull together, just $1b and guess what? Putin's image is being used as a cover page for the panama leaks by the western media.

I ask you isn't that indicative of how low this western junks have sunken in recent years? all in a bid to pull down Putin. You see why I am mortally angry with these idiots who come only to rant nonsense especially that guy missy89. For over 10 years the west has been on top of their voices on how corrupt Putin is, yet in these years of noise making no single acct or asset has been traced to Putin, even the so called Panama report has nothing remotely to do with Putin. This is very Pathetic, and in this midst of all these nonsense, a black ass man, whose very own ass Putin is trying to save will come online to talk nonsense.

I tell you if I were to have a live discussion with any of these western trolls it will not end well between me and them. God damn it! Putin has achieved in Russia what no leader has been able to achieve throughout human history and I challenge you to prove me wrong.

Obama always jumps up and down reminding the US of how he reduced unemployment rate from 10% when he came in 2008 to 4.6% as we speak, and as surprising as that may sound that is all he has to show for the 8years that he was POTUS. Yet even with this achievement he doubled the US corporate debt. In fact, in dollar value he is the most indebted presidency in the US history. Contrasting his miniature achievements with Putin's, here is a man who handled Russia in a state of comatose, unemployment rate was at 48%, hear me, I said 48% in 2000, Russia's corporate debt was at 80%, one the most deadly statistics has it that Russia has a birth deficit of 3%. In fact at that time a joke was circulating in NY where Americans where mocking the Russians of how poor they were and Americans will tease the Russians that they could buy Moscow for $20.

Shockingly by 2007 Putin has brought down the level of unemployment rate in Russia from 48% to 6%, brought down the corporate debt from 78% to 13% (contrast that with Obama who increased the debt by over 50%), brought the birth rate in Russia to a surplus of 4% per annum. increased pension and salaries by over 250% and restarted Russia's role in the world.

In the midst of all these, do you know what western media have to say? shockingly, they said Putin is corrupt, and that he was able to do those because of the spike in energy prices. What NONSENSE! I ask the western media - during those years of 'oil hike' didn't Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc witness oil price hike? How come it is only Russia that gained such a tremendous overflow in citizenship welfare, guess what? - the media went dumb

Saudi Arabia has more OPEC quota contribution, yet in terms of GDP PPP Russia under '(corrupt)' Putin is in the 5th place according to world bank figures of 2013, all the way from 21st place in 1999. If according to the western junk media Russia gained such momentum under corrupt Putin because of the spike in energy how come Saudi Arabia is not in the 1st place or at least ahead of Russia in GDP PPP?

With all that Putin has achieved yet he is not arrogant with his achievements, he is still very cool headed, playing the game very smart, has an uttermost respect for GOD unlike Obumber who all he wants is for Africans to be piercing each others anus, something MISSY89 is an expert in. Putin brought back Christianity into Russia's consciousness, revived the spiritual atmosphere in Russia made the %age of church goers in Russia double that of those in the US, and in all these someone will have the effrontery to say that Putin is corrupt, Pathetic.

Not many people know that Putin is a Lawyer and has a Phd and yet some one who has barely finished his Bsc will come online to rant against Putin. Look at the marvelous work the guy did in Syria, and yet these sons of eve of western trolls will come online to rant nonsense.

My man I just want you to reason along with me and see the reason why I am so venomous when it comes to some fools here on nairaland notably Missy89. I am sorry if my abuses on him irritates you, but sometimes seeing his posts i can't help being abusive on him.

God bless you!

So someone actually spent time to type all of that above?
Spot on tho

Here are the Nigerian(s) involved in the #panamapapers scandal:

James IboriIbori
The former governor of the Niger Delta who pleaded guilty to money laundering and fraud charges in 2012 has been serving a 13-year jail term in the United Kingdom. However, as of now, he’s still the only Nigerian that has been featured on the ICIJ website as part of the Panama Papers scandal. From his bio on the ICIJ website, Ibori can be termed as a serial “embezzler.”
The website made attributions to Ibori’s trial three years ago saying “Ibori admitted using his position as governor to corruptly obtain and divert up to $75 million out of Nigeria through a network of offshore companies, although authorities alleged that the total amount he embezzled may have exceeded $250 million.”

Bukola and Toyin SarakiSaraki
According to Premium Times, The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and his wife Toyin may be involved in the scandal as well. The paper has alleged that the Sarakis have at least 4 undeclared assets in “secret offshore territories.” While Saraki has denied owning undeclared properties, reportedly saying he has “declared his assets properly in accordance with the relevant legislation,” and that the charges against him “are both unfounded and politically motivated,” his family name may still be tainted as his brother, Laolu Saraki is linked to one of the names on the list.
Laolu Saraki was listed in the Panama Papers as a business associate of Kojo Annan, the son of the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, whose name is very prominent on the list.
What does this mean for Nigeria and Buhari’s fight against corruption?
The involvement of Nigerians in this list has only reinforced a common feature in the country which is corruption and a lack of accountability. Since independence, those appointed to positions of leadership – presidents, governors, lawmakers, even councillors – have taken pleasure in robbing the country of its resources without being held responsible for their actions. Although, one would have expected Sani Abacha’s name, he seems to have a worthy successor in James Ibori, who would have definitely gone scot-free without the intervention of the UK law enforcement agencies. Will Nigeria ever be free of corruption?
President Buhari, since he assumed office, has launched a full blown war against corruption, however, without further persecution, the people that were initially booed as being corrupt are now going about their business, untainted by it.
Nigerians try to hold their leaders accountable but fail, woefully, because the country is used to theft and corruption and the majority, are just, at best apathetic. Not much can be done given this attitude. If the war against corruption were authentic, complete with scapegoating and appropriate punishment, perhaps, Nigerians will not be so disillusioned and the government dismissive of those who actually make their displeasure known.

Seun and lalasticlala, I think this topic needs enough exposure

Cypriots & Greeks exposed in massive tax leak
3636 companies, 109 clients, 142 beneficiaries and 2011 shareholders from Cyprus are mentioned in the leak.
223 companies, 64 clients, 57 beneficiaries and 285 shareholders from Greece were also listed in the Panama Papers.
Source: http://cyprus-mail.com/2016/04/04/cyprus-implicated-in-panama-papers/

There will be a new protest against Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson today, at 17.00 local time in Reykjavík.
As More than 16,000 Icelanders have also signed a petition demanding his resignation, while the opposition has said it will seek a vote of no confidence in parliament

Panama Papers: Le Pen's aides set up 'offshore system'
Marine Le Pen aides set up a "sophisticated offshore system" to hide money, France's Le Monde newspaper claimed on Tuesday as France opened an official probe into money laundering and tax fraud following the "Panama Papers" leak.
"A sophisticated offshore system was put in place between Hong Kong, Singapore, the British Virgin Islands and Panama by the close aides of Marine Le pen," wrote Le Monde on Tuesday.

Kremlin dismisses revelations in Panama Papers as 'Putinphobia'
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denies his wife owned offshore companies but documents show she set up firm in 2014

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/04/kremlin-reaction-putin-dmitry-peskov-panama-papers-putinphobia