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Former headquarters of the law firm Mossack Fonseca: closed
Photo: Alejandro Bolivar/ dpa
More than five years after the "Panama Papers" were unveiled, the founders of the law firm Mossack-Fonseca are being tried in Panama.
According to court documents published on Tuesday, a total of 32 people are to be tried in the Central American country.
According to AFP information, these include the lawyers Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca Mora, whose law firm was at the center of the data leaks on questionable offshore accounts.
According to the judicial authorities, the trial is scheduled to take place between November 15 and 18, 2022.
The public prosecutor's office had already applied for charges of suspected money laundering in November last year.
The machinations of the Mossack-Fonseca law firm were uncovered in 2016 by an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that has become known as the "Panama Papers".
The investigation, based on the leak of 11.5 million documents from the law firm, revealed, among other things, that heads of state and government and well-known figures from the world of finance, sports and the arts had hidden money from the tax authorities.
heads of government and soccer stars
Celebrities included Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, both of whom resigned from their posts, as well as former British Prime Minister David Cameron and soccer star Lionel Messi.
The Mossack-Fonseca law firm had to cease operations after the scandal became known.
Panama has been repeatedly criticized internationally because many of those involved have so far escaped punishment.
73-year-old Jürgen Mossack is a lawyer from Fürth in Bavaria who has Panamanian citizenship.
In the early 1960s, the family emigrated from Germany to Panama. Mossack studied law in Panama and then worked in various law firms in Panama City and London.
In the 1980s, together with Fonseca, who was born in Panama, he founded the Mossack-Fonseca law firm specializing in letterbox companies.
German arrest warrants have also been issued against Mossack and Fonseca for aiding and abetting tax evasion.
However, Panama does not extradite its citizens to Germany.
conviction unlikely
In the new procedure, however, it is questionable whether the accused will actually be punished.
The Panamanian Supreme Court recently acquitted a former Mossack-Fonseca employee on the grounds that her activities within the company did not constitute a money laundering offense.
Tax evasion has only been a criminal offense in Panama since 2019 and is therefore not applicable to the machinations revealed in 2016.
According to the Panama Papers, the country introduced reforms to protect its financial system and improve its international image.
Among other things, the government introduced measures to identify the origin and ultimate beneficiary of companies, strengthened legal controls and criminalized tax evasion.
Panama also signed an agreement with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the automated exchange of tax information with more than a hundred countries.
Nevertheless, Panama is still on the list of tax havens in the EU.
The International Money Laundering Unit (FATF) also believes that the Panamanian government is not doing enough to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
mike/AFP