Panama. The hearings of the trial for alleged money laundering against the heads of the defunct Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, epicenter of the international scandal of the Panama Papers, as well as about twenty others involved, concluded this Friday in Panama.
The sentence, however, will be announced in the coming weeks. Judge Baloísa Marquínez took advantage of the period of 30 business days dictated by Panamanian law to give her verdict, a period that may be longer depending on the length of the file.
“The court adheres to the law to issue the corresponding sentence,” said Marquínez at the conclusion of the hearings of the trial that began on April 8 in Panama City.
During the trial, prosecutor Isis Soto requested 12 years in prison, the maximum penalty for money laundering, for Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, founders of the Mossack Fonseca firm, the epicenter of the scandal that broke out in 2016.
“There truly has been a great injustice that has been committed, not only to me, but to all the people who have worked with me, which are many,” Mossack declared at the conclusion of the hearing.
Soto also requested sentences of between 5 and 12 years in prison for 24 other defendants, mainly former employees of the firm, while asking for the acquittal of three other defendants.
“Messrs. Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca […] received and transferred funds from illicit activities that occurred in Germany and Argentina,” Soto said.
According to the prosecution, Mossack, 76, and Fonseca, 71, are responsible for facilitating through the law firm the creation of opaque companies in which directors of the German multinational Siemens deposited millions of euros outside the real accounting of the company. company.
That “box B” would have been used to hide money from the payment of commissions.
The Panamanian office, according to the accusation, was also used to store money from a massive scam in Argentina.
The trial took place eight years after the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the Panama Papers on April 3, 2016.
This investigation, based on the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Mossack Fonseca office, revealed how heads of state and government, political leaders, personalities from finance, sports and the arts hid properties, companies, assets and profits to evade taxes or money laundering.
The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin and the former rulers of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson; from Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif; from Great Britain, David Cameron; and from Argentina, Mauricio Macri; In addition to the Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi were some of the names mentioned then.
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– 2024-04-21 11:45:53
