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 Other jurisdictions are likely to follow suit following the leak
over the weekend of details of hundreds of thousands of clients in
more than 11.5 million documents from the files of law firm Mossack
Fonseca, based in the tax haven of Panama.
The documents are at the center of an investigation published on
Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
and more than 100 other news organizations around the globe.
The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it received the huge
cache of documents and shared them with the other media outlets.
The leaked "Panama Papers" cover a period over almost 40 years, from
1977 until 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.
"I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the
offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the
documents," said Gerard Ryle, director of the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
 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 could not
independently confirm those details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not immediately respond to a
request for comment from Reuters on Monday.
Last week, Peskov said reports about the financial dealings of
concert cellist Sergei Roldugin, a friend of Putin, and other
related reports, were part of a politically motivated campaign to
discredit Putin ahead of a cycle of elections.
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) said it was investigating more than
800 wealthy clients of Mossack Fonseca.
"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. It did not name the Hong Kong company.
ATO Deputy Commissioner Michael Cranston said his office was working
with the Australian police and the anti-money laundering regulator
AUSTRAC to cross-check the data, and some cases may be referred to
the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce.
The 800 individuals under investigation include 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 many
taxpayers who had not previously come forward. DATABASE "HACK"
The head of Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing but said 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".
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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. The "vast majority" of these have
been used for "legitimate purposes", he said.
The papers also showed the involvement of Pakistini Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif's family in off-shore companies, including his daughter
Mariam and son Hussain. Pakistani Information Minister Pervez
Rasheed denied any wrongdoing on the Sharifs' part.
"Every man has the right to do what he wants with his assets, to
throw them in the sea, to sell them, or to establish a trust for
them. There is no crime in this in Pakistani law or in international
law," Rasheed said.
Hussain Nawaz, speaking to Geo TV, also said there was nothing
illegal either about the family’s ownership of the companies, or
about the activities of the companies themselves.
"I have never hidden anything and neither do I have any need to hide
them...these companies are allowed under British law so that one
does not need to pay unnecessary taxes," he said.
New Zealand's tax agency said it was 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.
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
U.S. probe into corruption in the sport.
FIFA's ethics committee said 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 he broke off relations with
Figueredo when the latter was accused of corruption.
(Additional reporting by Brian Homewood; Writing by Sam Holmes and
Angus MacSwan,; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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