27 employees of the famous law firm Mossack Fonseca sat on the bench with accusations of money laundering, as well as the founders of the firm, Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca Mora, who in 2016 had been at the center of the revelations from the Panama Papers. Their office was the one that did all the dirty work of setting up (and not only) offshore companies by wealthy individuals to commit tax fraud and hide assets.
The trial started in Panama and as reported by the international media, Mossack himself gave his “present” at the hearing and even declared himself innocent of what he was accused of and optimistic about the outcome of the trial. Instead, a representative of Fonseca appeared in court to argue that the co-founder of the office is hospitalized. Mossack and Fonseca have argued that they had no control over the offshore companies the firm set up for its clients.
It is noted that the legislation of Panama during the period under review permitted the activities that Mossack Fonseca had undertaken at the time and the law on money laundering in the country was changed after them. This, as estimated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, means that it is extremely difficult to convict the accused.
It is worth emphasizing here that since the leak of approximately 11.5 million company files in 2016, investigative journalists have been able to identify offshore companies that connected more than 100 politicians from around the world, including leaders of 12 countries, but also many suspicious “transactions” » or moves to avoid taxation, amounting to several billion euros.
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