Moving from one tax haven to the next
Trick number 4: high interest rates for little money
Obviously, these are particularly profitable businesses. The „Süddeutsche Zeitung“ specifies a deal in this regard by Roldugin’s company International Media Overseas. In February 2011 she got all rights to a $ 200 million loan – for one dollar. According to the contract, the loan generated interest payments of $ 21,917 daily, which makes $ 8 million a year.
Trick number 5: loans that never seem to get paid back
With this trick, politicians and celebrities are said to have received a kind of personal credit card. The bank in question has approved „extremely generous lines of credit“ to a letterbox company. The corresponding politician or celebrity could therefore easily receive money up to a limit without ever paying it back. According to Süddeutscher Zeitung, „this was specifically the case with the company“ Sandalwood „. Between 2009 and 2012 alone, it is said to have received loans totaling 800 million dollars. The money is said to come from the“ Russian Commercial Bank „in Cyprus, which largely owned by the Russian state through VTB Bank.
(Source: Statista)
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The Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca is at the center of the publication of the „Panama Papers“. One of its namesake is a German emigrant.
Maps, graphics, videos – what you should know about the „Panama Papers“
Maps, graphics, videos
What you should know about the Panama Papers
Jürgen Mossack was born in Fürth in 1948. At a young age he emigrated with his family to Panama, where he obtained a law degree. Otherwise little is known about him, his picture is not available in public databases.
According to information from the ICIJ research network that uncovered the „Panama Papers“ affair, Mossack’s father was a National Socialist and a member of the Waffen SS. Latin America was a popular refuge for old Nazis after 1945. Mossack Senior is said to have later offered himself to the US foreign intelligence service CIA as a spy, reports the ICIJ, citing old documents from the US intelligence services.
Law firm partners advised Panamanian presidents
Mossack’s law firm partner Ramón Fonseca Mora, on the other hand, is quite a public figure in Panama. In recent years he has acted as an advisor to the Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela – both are in the same party. Because of investigations against Mossack Fonseca in Brazil, he is currently suspending his consultancy work. Fonseca was born in 1952 and studied in Panama and at the renowned London School of Economics.
In an interview, Fonseca once said that he originally wanted to be a priest. But things turned out differently: Mossack founded the finance law firm in 1977, Fonseca joined in 1986. The company made a name for itself as a provider of creative tax-saving models with all discretion.
Moving from one tax haven to the next
Initially, the firm used the British Virgin Islands as its base of operations – a British colony in the Caribbean that has long been a tax haven. According to the ICIJ, the evaluation of the „Panama Papers“ showed that more than half of the approximately 214,000 letterbox companies operated by Mossack Fonseca – over 113,000 – were registered on these islands. When the Virgin Islands tightened their tax laws, the focus shifted to Panama.
The law firm was extremely resourceful in its search for tax havens. For a time, according to the ICIJ, she set up numerous letterbox companies in Niue, a Pacific island associated with New Zealand.who is the mockingbird in to kill a mockingbird essay The business was so lucrative that the law firm contributed around 80 percent to the annual budget of the semi-autonomous island state in 2001.
Discreet lawyers in the spotlight
The discretion that has surrounded Mossack Fonseca’s businesses for decades is now over. „It’s a crime“: Ramón Fonseca commented on the publication of the documents to AFP in Panama City. „This is an attack on Panama because certain countries don’t like our being so successful in recruiting.“
„Panama Papers“: Law firm does not want to have helped with money laundering Anne Will on „Panama Papers“: “ Taxes are deducted from employees, others trick their way through “ „Panama Papers“: Mailbox companies revealed by top politicians from all over the world
Fonseca told Reuters that misconduct is wise. The law firm sets up legal structures that banks and lawyers use, for example. His law firm is not responsible for the later activities of the letterbox companies, but rather the victim of an „international campaign against data protection“.
Rich people in need of explanation: The „Panama Papers“ show how top politicians, dictators and sports greats around the world hide their assets with the help of letterbox companies. These „top players“ have been hit by the biggest data leak in history.
Maps, graphics, videos – what you should know about the „Panama Papers“
Maps, graphics, videos
What you should know about the Panama Papers
Putin friend Sergei Roldugin
The cellist: Putin’s good friend Sergei Roldugin. (Source: imago / Tar Tass)
The name of the Russian President himself does not appear in the „Panama Papers“. But research by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows that close confidants of Vladimir Putin have smuggled more than two billion dollars through letterbox companies in recent years – without it being clear where they got this money from. In this way they got millions out of the country.
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Among them is Sergej Roldugin, one of the Kremlin chief’s closest friends since his youth and godfather of Putin’s first daughter. The respected cellist and conductor was the owner of two offshore companies controlled by Bank Rossija. According to the US government, the bank is under the leadership of Putin’s personal banker. Roldugin is said to have had influence on an armaments company and several media through the two companies.
In addition, the billionaire brothers Arkadi and Boris Rotenberg – also friends of Putin – let business such as pipeline deals or the purchase of luxury goods run through offshore companies.
Rami and Hafez Makhlouf, cousins of Bashar al-Assad
Rami Makhlouf is a Syrian businessman – and the cousin of dictator Bashar al-Assad. (Source: dpa)
The brothers Rami and Hafez Makhlouf have amassed a fortune through the connection with their cousin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In 1998, Rami used Polter Investments to invest in Syrian telecommunications with Jordanian investors. In 2002 he co-founded SyriaTel, a Syrian cell phone company. He personally owned ten percent of the stock and held another 63 percent through an offshore company called Drex Technologies.
As of February 2011, Mossack Fonseca law firm employees began discussing the US Treasury Department’s corruption allegations and sanctions against the Makhlouf family. In June of the same year, Mossack Fonseca was informed in connection with Drex Technologies about investigations into suspected money laundering. This led Mossack Fonseca to cut ties with Makhlouf’s family companies. In the Makhlouf / Assad case, letterbox companies apparently served to circumvent UN sanctions.
Petro Poroshenko
„King of Chocolate“ Petro Poroshenko has been President of Ukraine since 2014. (Source: dpa)
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is the sixth richest Ukrainian, according to Forbes. His fortune is estimated at a good 750 million euros. He came to the money primarily as the „chocolate king“: his confectionery group Roshen is the market leader in Eastern Europe. The „Panama Papers“ reveal that at the height of the war in eastern Ukraine, Poroshenko founded a mailbox company: Prime Asset Partners Limited. That was around two months after he was elected president.
According to the „Panama Papers“, the mailbox company was intended as a „holding company for Cypriot and Ukrainian companies in the Roshen Group“. At the request of the „Süddeutsche Zeitung“ (SZ), Poroshenko’s press office stated that Prime Assets Partners Limited was „part of the process“ of transferring the presidential assets into a trust. Poroshenko had long since disclosed „all information regarding his assets, his expenses and his income“.
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson led a 2008 campaign against the bank bailout in the financial crisis. (Source: dpa)
Iceland’s current Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson led a campaign as a journalist in 2008 against the bank bailout after the financial crisis. Shortly afterwards he became party leader of the Progress Party. In 2013 he led his party to an election victory. At the age of 38 he became the youngest head of government in his country.
Gunnlaugsson and his wife Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, daughter of a wealthy Toyota dealer, owned an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands called Wintris. She held around four million dollars in bonds from three major Icelandic banks. After its collapse in 2008, Gunnlaugsson led a political campaign against bailing out foreign lenders. It is unclear whether this campaign had a positive or negative impact on the value of Wintris. At the end of 2009 – Gunnlaugsson was now sitting in the Icelandic parliament – he sold his half of Wintris to his wife for one dollar.
In April 2013, the law firm Mossack Fonseca noticed that Pálsdóttir is a politically exposed person. Internal records suggest the company did nothing.
Mauricio Macri
Mauricio Macri was only elected President of Argentina last year. (Source: dpa)
Mauricio Macri founded the conservative Propuesta Republicana party in Argentina in 2005. From 2007 he was mayor of Buenos Aires. In 2015 he was elected President. He took office with the promise to liberalize the economy and fight corruption.
Macri, his father Francisco and brother Mariano were the directors of Fleg Trading Ltd., incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998, dissolved in January 2009. Macri had not disclosed the connection to Fleg Trading in the 2007 and 2008 asset declarations during his tenure as mayor, according to Argentine journalists. However, according to the ICIJ, he stated an account with Merrill Lynch in the USA – with 2.9 million dollars in 2007 and 1.9 million dollars in 2008. He also declared 158,000 dollars in foreign assets, but gave no details of its origin.
David Cameron’s father and fellow party member
David Cameron’s late father, Ian Cameron, is also listed in the Panama Papers. (Source: Reuters)
British Prime Minister David Cameron comes under pressure in the wake of the revelations. British media reports that the more than 11.5 million documents on which the revelations are based mention his father, Ian Cameron, who died in 2010. In addition, members of Cameron’s party and financial supporters of the Conservatives appear in the documents. Cameron’s office declined to comment. The government asked the journalist research network ICIJ for a copy of the leaked data. „We will examine this data carefully and act quickly and appropriately.“
Cameron has spoken out against tax evasion several times. According to the government, Cameron has managed to collect more than two billion pounds from tax evaders who wanted to switch to tax havens since taking office in 2010.
Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman al-Saud
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is also mentioned in the Panama Papers. (Source: dpa)
Salman has been the King of Saudi Arabia since January 2015. He was previously Secretary of Defense and Vice Prime Minister of the Kingdom. The ICIJ research revealed that Salman had played an unknown role in the Safason Corporation. It had stakes in two other firms that took out $ 34 million in mortgages on luxury real estate in the City of London in 2009. At that time Salman was governor of the capital-province of Riyadh.
Both mortgages are noted in the „Panama Papers“ that they are „related“ to Salman. The king is also referred to as the „main user“ of a yacht named Erga, which has also been registered by an offshore company.
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi will have to go to court in May on suspicion of tax evasion. (Source: dpa)
The Argentine Lionel Messi has been considered the best footballer in the world for years. But the 28-year-old has been investigated for tax evasion for a long time. At the end of May, the star from FC Barcelona is on trial: He is said to have evaded taxes worth 4.1 million euros. According to „SZ“, he is said to have used a network of offshore companies. Messi’s statement so far: „I don’t watch what I sign“. The soccer player said that during an interrogation by the investigating judge at the time.
In the „Panama Papers“ there is now, in addition to the offshore companies that have already been discovered, another, previously unknown, letterbox company. Half of it is said to belong to Messi and was supervised for a time by the law firm Mossack Fonseca from Panama. It’s called Mega Star Enterprises. The company has not yet appeared in the files of the public prosecutor’s office, confirmed a spokesman for the authority when asked by the „SZ“.
Messi and his father Jorge Horacio Messi reacted angrily to the ICIJ publications. On Monday they sued the investigative journalists‘ network.
Michael Platini
Former top footballer and later UEFA boss Michel Platini. (Source: dpa)
