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Court acquits 28 in Panama Papers money laundering case

Panama Papers news
Image – icij.org.

A Panamanian court has acquitted all 28 individuals accused of money laundering linked to the Panama Papers scandal, concluding a trial that started in April.

The 2016 leak of secret financial documents exposed how the world’s elite used tax havens to conceal their wealth.

Among those cleared were Jurgen Mossack and the late Ramon Fonseca, founders of Mossack Fonseca, the now-defunct law firm at the centre of the controversy. Judge Baloisa Marquinez ruled that the evidence presented was ‘insufficient’ to establish criminal responsibility.

The prosecution had sought a 12-year sentence for Mossack and Fonseca, who passed away in May, but both denied any illegal activities by themselves, their firm, or their employees.

According to UK state media, the trial in Panama City spanned 85 hours, featured testimonies from 27 witnesses, and examined over 50 pieces of documentary evidence.

Judge Marquinez noted that evidence from Mossack Fonseca’s servers was not collected in accordance with due process, leading to the dismissal of all charges. The Panama Papers leak, which consisted of 11 million documents shared with journalists globally, implicated various high-profile figures, including former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and football star Lionel Messi, in secretive financial dealings.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. https://www.interest.co.nz/news/81460/panama-papers-whistleblower-issues-statement-hits-out-nz-prime-minister-john-key-over
    Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand has been curiously quiet about his country’s role in enabling the financial fraud Mecca that is the Cook Islands. In Britain, the Tories have been shameless about concealing their own practices involving offshore companies, while Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Treasury, just announced her resignation to work instead for HSBC, one of the most notorious banks on the planet (not coincidentally headquartered in London). And so the familiar swish of America’s revolving door echoes amidst deafening global silence from thousands of yet-to-be-discovered ultimate beneficial owners who are likely praying that her replacement is equally spineless. In the face of political cowardice, it’s tempting to yield to defeatism, to argue that the status quo remains fundamentally unchanged, while the Panama Papers are, if nothing else, a glaring symptom of our society’s progressively diseased and decaying moral fabric.
    Democratic governance depends upon responsible individuals throughout the entire system who understand and uphold the law, not who understand and exploit it.

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