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Authorities Raid Law Firm at Center of Panama Papers Leak

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Leroy N. Soetoro

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Apr 13, 2016, 6:18:06 PM4/13/16
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/americas/authorities-raid-law-
firm-at-center-of-panama-papers-leak.html

MEXICO CITY — The Panamanian authorities have raided the offices of
Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the vast leak of documents
this month that exposed the global use of offshore tax shelters, and spent
at least 16 hours combing through the company’s files looking for evidence
of possible “illegal activities,” officials said on Wednesday.

The search at the company’s headquarters in Panama City, which was led by
an organized crime unit from the attorney general’s office, began Tuesday
afternoon and lasted until Wednesday morning. Other groups of
investigators also searched subsidiaries of the firm in Panama and a
Panamanian telephone company’s data support center, officials said.

The disclosure of about 11.5 million documents from the firm, which
specializes in setting up offshore accounts, laid bare the elaborate
system of shell companies that the world’s wealthy and powerful use to
stash their money, often in an effort to minimize or avoid tax payments.

The revelations have spurred criminal investigations around the world,
brought pressure on senior politicians in numerous countries and led to
the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David
Gunnlaugsson.

The Panamanian investigators were gathering documents related to news
articles “that establish the possible use of the law firm in illegal
activities,” the Public Ministry of Panama, which includes the attorney
general’s office, said in a statement.

Sandra Sotillo, spokeswoman for the Public Ministry, said in a phone
interview that investigators were “trying to verify whether the
information published in the news media was true.”

Computer forensics experts and financial analysts accompanied prosecutors
and police officers on the raid at the company’s headquarters, according
to La Prensa, a Panamanian daily.

The search came a day after the Peruvian authorities raided the Lima
offices of the law firm and seized accounting documents. Peru’s tax agency
issued a statement saying that investigators were exploring whether shell
companies established by the firm had been used to commit crimes in Peru.

Prosecutors from the intellectual property division of the attorney
general’s office in Panama visited Mossack Fonseca’s offices in Panama
City on Monday to explore the firm’s contention that the leak was the work
of an outside computer hacker rather than an inside job.

The firm and its co-founders, Ramón Fonseca and Jurgen Mossack, have
asserted that they committed no crimes and that the authorities should be
focusing not on their work but on the cause of the leak. They have said
that they are not responsible for the actions of the shell companies and
the use of the offshore accounts they help create.

“We stand ready, willing and eager to cooperate with the authorities again
on their latest investigations to ensure this situation is brought to a
just conclusion,” the firm said in a statement on Tuesday as the sweep in
Panama City unfolded. “In this case, we’re the ones against whom a crime
has been committed. Our systems having been unlawfully breached by parties
external to the firm.”

News of the latest raid in Panama City came as tax officials from around
the world gathered on Wednesday in Paris under the aegis of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to discuss the
worldwide implications of the leak of documents.

President Juan Carlos Varela of Panama has said that his government would
form an international committee of experts to review the country’s legal
and financial practices and to propose measures that would increase
transparency in the global financial sector. His government on Tuesday
announced that the economist Joseph Stiglitz would be a member of the
panel.



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