In the Panama Papers trial for tax evasion and money laundering, internal documents released to the press were not sufficient to convict, according to the competent court in Panama. All 28 defendants were acquitted.
Eight years after the release of the database known as the “Panama Papers” by the Panamanian law firm Mossack-Fonseca, the court ruled to acquit the 28 defendants.
According to the arguments of the competent court in Panama City, the evidence was not sufficient to convict the defendants, who were accused, among other things, of money laundering through the creation of 215,000 shell companies in tax havens. On the one hand, the chain of evidence was unreliable and, on the other, the evidence was insufficient and inconclusive, the judge ruled.
Origin of the “Panama Papers”
The Panama Papers were published in 2016 by a group of several hundred journalists. The ensuing scandal put many political careers at risk and even the name of footballer Lionel Messi was included in the documents.
The data was transmitted to the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the US-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2015. More than four hundred journalists from over a hundred media outlets participated in the investigation, and the results were published in April 2016. The released documents comprised 2.6 terabytes of data. Their processing was initiated by journalists under the coordination of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The first results were published in spring 2016 in articles that triggered scandals and criminal proceedings around the world.
Who appeared in the newspapers and was at the center of the scandal
The list included billionaires, sports stars and politicians. Many celebrities were implicated in the scandal, including Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Following the publication, numerous investigations were launched worldwide and Panama’s offshore banking system suffered a severe blow. It took eight years for the case to reach the courts.
Among the defendants are Jürgen Mossack and the late Ramón Fonseca Mora, the two founders of the law firm that survived the scandal for three years, having been closed in 2018.
After the scandal broke, Panama passed some laws, but the Central American country remains on the European Union’s blacklist of tax havens. Since 2019, tax evasion in Panama has been punishable by prison sentences, but only if the amount exceeds $300,000.
Netflix filmed the scandal in The Laundromat, starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas.
2024-06-29 17:07:59