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, often for the purpose of avoiding legal inspection. The leak encompasses 2.6 terabytes of data, comprised of 11.5 million documents regarding 214,000 shell companies. Some of the world's most powerful people are now implicated in using offshore bank accounts to conceal their wealth, avoid taxes, or both. Although many of the accused have denied any wrongdoing, the leak, now dubbed the "Panama Papers," has nevertheless raised international suspicion about the widespread corruption in the global financial system.Fallout over the leaks has already begun. Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson recently stepped down due to his involvement with Mossack Fonseca after mass protests erupted throughout the country-however he is by no means the only high-profile individual targeted in the Papers. Also named were President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the former emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, and international soccer star Lionel Messi. Associates of Putin have also been named, with The Guardian claiming that there is a two billion dollar scheme in place "in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore." Top officials in China are implicated as well. As more and more individuals are named, international outrage continues to grow; although a shell company is often not technically illegal, but it is certainly immoral-especially for somebody who holds a public office.
All of this begs the question-where are the accused individuals from the United States? Although 3,500 people with shares in offshore companies provided a United States address, that is not enough evidence to determine whether or not they are US citizens. Most of the investors, furthermore, appear to be private individuals. No prominent American politicians have been named in the Panama Papers-but this does not mean that no American politicians are hiding wealth and avoiding taxes. It is easy to make shell companies in the US-there is no substantial reason to turn to a Panama company such as Mossack Fonseca when one can work from home, so to speak.
As Heather Lowe, Director of Government Affairs for Global Financial Integrity, has stated, "The size of the leak is unprecedented, but the tricks Mossack Fonseca has allegedly used for its clients are neither new nor surprising. Anonymous shell companies and the failure of governments to require lawyers, corporate service companies, or banks to collect beneficial ownership information on clients leave the door wide open for dirty money to flow around the globe virtually unhindered." But the issue of shell companies and the corruption they embody is not only a moral problem, but also a problem of growth; developing economies lost $7.8 billion because of companies such as Mossack Fonseca between 2004 and 2013. Corruption may be endemic to the global market; but the scale of the corruption that the Panama Papers have revealed just how skewed the financial is to the purported "1%."