Panama Papers: Everything You Need To Know About The Biggest Data Leak In History
Panama Papers have shown how the rich and influential across the world have been using foreign tax havens to evade billions in tax payments. The investigation details how shell companies were floated by politicians and celebrities to avoid paying taxes. Some 140 offshore companies named in the documents are connected to politicians or public officials and their families.
Panama Papers, as they are being called now, have shown how the rich and influential across the world have been using foreign tax havens to evade billions in tax payments.
The investigation details how shell companies were floated by politicians and celebrities to avoid paying taxes.
ICIJ
Some 140 offshore companies named in the documents are connected to politicians or public officials and their families.
Some of the prominent names featured in the list include aides to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Argentine President Mauricio Macri, Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur Dav¨ª? Gunnlaugsson, and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko.
75 World Leaders Were Named In The List By ICIJ
Non-politcal tax-evaders include Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
Here is all you need to know
Where did the documents leak from?
The leaked data was from Mossack Fonseca, a law firm headquartered in tax haven Panama, known for its factory-like production of offshore companies for its worldwide clients.
AFP
Mossack Fonseca is the world¡¯s fourth biggest provider of offshore services. It has acted for more than 300,000 companies.
How big is the leak?
According to reports, as much as 11.5m documents and 2.6 terabytes of information has been drawn from Mossack Fonseca¡¯s database.
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It is way higher than the previous information leaks like WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden. While WikiLeaks data was estimated to be around 1.7 GB the 2015 HSBC files had 3.3 GB and the 2014 Luxembourg tax files contained documents to the size of 4.4 GB.
Who are behind the leak?
'The Panama Papers' were obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
ICIJ
More than 100 media groups were involved in the investigation and it is described as one of the largest such probes in history.
Some of the media groups involved in the investigation include The Indian Express (India), The Guardian and BBC (UK), Columbia University and Miami Herald (USA), Vedemosti (Russia), Le Monde (France), El Confidencial (Spain), ABC Four Corners (Australia), CBC/Radio (Canada), Daily Monitor (Uganda) and La Naci¨®n (Argentina).
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Bobins Abraham is the Assistant News Editor at Indiatimes. He has more than twelve years of experience in TV and digital journalism. An avid student of history and geopolitics, he is a conservationist and environmentalist at heart. He writes on environment, sustainability, human-animal conflict and more.
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