The Panama Papers have been released representing an unprecedented blow to those using offshore tax havens for their financial advantage while hoping to avoid scrutiny.
The huge database has revealed the offshore links of some of the world’s most prominent figures.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and over 100 media partners has spent a year going through 11.5 million leaked files detailing the offshore holdings of political leaders and the hidden financial transactions of fraudsters, drug traffickers, billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.
This is the biggest leak of inside information in history and includes 40 years of data from a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s top creators of shell companies and corporate structures used to hide assets.
The data from more than 214,000 offshore companies includes emails, financial spreadsheets, passports and corporate records that reveal the owners of bank accounts and companies in many offshore jurisdictions.
The huge leak of confidential information reveals how the rich and powerful have used tax havens to hide their wealth and show links to current and former heads of state, including dictators accused of looting their own Treasuries.
"I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents," said Gerard Ryle, director of the ICIJ.
The data contains secret offshore companies linked to the families and associates of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak, Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syria's president Bashar al-Assad.
It also reveals the billion-dollar suspected money laundering ring run by a Russian bank involving close associates of President Putin in an operation run by Bank Rossiya, which is subject to US and EU sanctions following Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Although the name of the Russian president does not appear in any of the documents, the Guardian newspaper states that there is "a network of secret business related to offshore and loans worth two billion dollars drawing a trail leading to Vladimir Putin." This money "created fabulous wealth for inner circle members" of the Russian President.
Mossack Fonseca data also shows how Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson had an undeclared interest in his country's bailed-out banks. Mr Gunnlaugsson has been accused of hiding millions of dollars of investments in his country's banks behind a secretive offshore company.
In Portugal, the award winning journalist Rui Araujo has been involved in the investigation process with news expected in the next few days of any prominent Portuguese involved in this particular offshore scandal.
It is an "offshore pandemonium," says the Guardian, explaining that there is information about "property belonging to 12 political leaders, including Vladimir Putin and his inner circle, Iceland, Pakistan and Ukraine."
The scandal also involves "companies linked to more than 140 senior political leaders, friends and family, and 22 persons subject to sanctions for supporting regimes in North Korea, Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe," and goods resulting from theft, as well as "hidden art in private collections."
According to the Guardian, the documents show "the huge number of people who use offshore to protect their fortunes." It is not illegal to do so, says the newspaper, but "the financial benefits that these structures offer are not usually available to ordinary taxpayers."
The documents involve the President of China, the President of Ukraine, Prime Minister of Iceland, the king of Saudi Arabia, the children of the President of Azerbaijan and the father of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
The Süddeutzsche Zeitung has not revealed the identity of its source, but both Le Monde and The Guardian have confirmed the authenticity of the files.
The Panama Papers, according to the French daily, have been sold to the German, US and British tax authorities over the past few years, which led to official investigations.
So far from Portugal, only the businessman Idalécio Castro Rodrigues de Oliveira, CEO of the Lusitania Group, appears on the list. Currently, he is being investigated in Brazil in the Lava Jato case for corruption involving several companies including the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras.
De Oliveira is linked to oil exploration, natural gas and minerals, according to the newspaper Público, and the released documents show that he transferred money to politicians now under investigation Lava Jato in Brazil.
Rodrigues de Oliveira transferred about €8.8 million in 2011 to the Swiss bank account controlled by João Augusto Rezende Henriques, a lobbyist related to the Dilma Rousseff ‘Workers Party.’
The transfer took place in May 2011 through a company created by Mossack Fonseca called Acona International Investments Limited based in the Seychelles.
The transfer was triggered by the 2011 sale of half of an oil exploration area in Benin to Brazil’s Petrobras in a deal which earned the Lusitania Group €57.9 million. Months before the deal was closed, Idalécio Castro Rodrigues de Oliveira created the necessary British Virgin Island companies.
