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 The leak involves more than 11.5 million documents from the files of
law firm Mossack Fonseca, based in the tax haven of Panama,
revealing details of hundreds of thousands of clients in multiple
jurisdictions.
The documents are at the center of an investigation published on
Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,
the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other
news organizations around the globe. Suddeutsche Zeitung reported it
received the huge cache of documents and then shared them with the
other media outlets.
The leaked "Panama Papers" cover a period over almost 40 years, from
1977 until as recently as last December, and allegedly show that
some companies domiciled in tax havens were being used for suspected
money laundering, arms and drug deals, and tax evasion.
Britain´s Guardian newspaper said the documents showed a network of
secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion led to close
friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters couldn't
independently confirm those details.
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) said on Monday it is investigating
more than 800 wealthy clients of Mossack Fonseca.
"Currently we have identified over 800 individual taxpayers and we
have now linked over 120 of them to an associate offshore service
provider located in Hong Kong," the Australian tax office said in a
statement emailed to Reuters. It did not name the Hong Kong company.
DATABASE "HACK"
The head of Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing but
acknowledged his firm had suffered a successful but "limited" hack
on its database.
The firm's director, Ramon Fonseca described the hack and leak as
"an international campaign against privacy".
Fonseca, who was up until March a senior government official in
Panama, said in a telephone interview with Reuters on Sunday the
firm, which specializes in setting up offshore companies, has formed
more than 240,000 such companies and noted the "vast majority" of
these have been used for "legitimate purposes."
ATO Deputy Commissioner Michael Cranston said his office was working
with the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Crime Commission
and anti-money laundering regulator AUSTRAC to further cross-check
the data from the documents.
"Some cases may be referred to the Serious Financial Crime
Taskforce," Cranston said in the statement.
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The 800 individuals under investigation include some taxpayers who
had previously been investigated and others who had reported
themselves to the tax office under a voluntary disclosure
initiative, which allowed people to come forward and avoid steep
penalties and criminal charges and has since ended.
However, the ATO said those under investigation also included a
large number of taxpayers who had not previously come forward.
New Zealand's tax agency on Monday said it is "working closely" with
its tax treaty partners to obtain full details of any New Zealand
tax residents who may have been involved in arrangements facilitated
by Mossack Fonseca.
John Nash, the New Zealand agency's international revenue strategy
manager, told Reuters in emailed comments that there is an "active
compliance programme focused on those who engage in abusive offshore
arrangements and don't meet their tax obligations."
Separately, media reports said the leaked data pointed to a link
between a member of global soccer body FIFA's ethics committee and a
Uruguayan soccer official who was arrested last year as part of a
wide-ranging U.S. probe into corruption in the sport.
FIFA's ethics committee said in a statement on Sunday that Juan
Pedro Damiani, a member of the committee's judgment chamber, was
being investigated over a possible business relationship with fellow
Uruguayan Eugenio Figueredo, one of the soccer officials arrested in
Zurich last year.
Damiani told Reuters in Montevideo on Sunday that he broke off
relations with Figueredo when the latter was accused of corruption.
(Additional reporting by Brian Homewood; Writing by Sam Holmes;
Editing by Martin Howell)
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