The Panama Papers are a leak of over 11 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that reveal how the wealthy use offshore companies and shell corporations to hide assets and avoid taxes. The documents show that public officials and others have used offshore shell companies to carry out illegal activities like fraud, tax evasion, and sanctions busting. While offshore companies are not inherently illegal, the leak illustrates how they can be and are used to facilitate criminal schemes and keep personal finances secret. The massive leak was given to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and analyzed over a year by journalists from 107 media organizations around the world.

1. The Panama Papers is a global investigation into the sprawling, secretive industry of offshore
that the world's rich and powerful use to hide assets and skirt rules by setting up front companies
in far-flung jurisdictions. The investigation exposes a cast of characters who use offshore
companies to facilitate bribery, arms deals, tax evasion, financial fraud and drug trafficking.
The Panama Papers are 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney–client
information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The leaked documents were created by
Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, some dated back to the
1970s.
The leaked documents illustrate how wealthy individuals, including public officials, are able to
keep personal financial information private. While the use of offshore business entities is often
not illegal, reporters found that some of the shell corporations were used for illegal purposes,
including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.
Mossack Fonseca shows the reality of offshore. Through the Panama Papers the world is able to
see what offshore is all about. From outside Mossack Fonseca looks like a perfect respectable
company. But this is a business that help people around the world break the law.
But Mossack Fonseca say the services they provide that are commonly used worldwide and they
are responsible members of the global financial and business community. It never knowingly
allowed the use of its companies by individuals with a relationship to Syria. The law firm says it
is quick to report suspicious activity. Always co-operates with authorities. And it does not offer
solutions whose purpose is to hide unlawful acts such as Tax Evasion.
John Doe, who leaked the documents to German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), remains
anonymous, even to journalists on the investigation. “My life is in danger”, he told them. In a
May 6 statement, John Doe cited income inequality and said he leaked the documents simply
because he understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they
described. He added that he has never worked for any government or intelligence agency and

2. expressed willingness to help prosecutors. After Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) verified that it did
come from the Panama Papers source, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
(ICIJ) posted the full written statement on its website.
Because of the number of documents, Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) asked the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) for help. Journalists from 107 media organizations
in 80 countries analyzed documents detailing the operations of the law firm. After more than a
year of analysis, the first news stories were published on April 3, 2016, along with 149 of the
documents themselves. The project represents an important milestone in the use of data
journalism software tools and mobile collaboration.
The documents were quickly dubbed the Panama Papers. The Panamanian government strongly
objects to the name; so do other entities in Panama and elsewhere. Some media outlets covering
the story have used the name "Mossack Fonseca Papers."