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What happened

• In 2016, an anonymous whistleblower (“John Doe”) leaked 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
• The data was shared with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and investigated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
• Journalists in over 80 countries worked on it.

What the documents revealed

• How shell companies (companies with no real operations) were created in secrecy jurisdictions.
• These companies were used to:
  • Hide assets
  • Avoid or evade taxes
  • Conceal ownership
  • Move money anonymously
• Not all offshore use is illegal, but the secrecy enabled systematic abuse.

Who was implicated

• Current and former heads of state
• Politicians, billionaires, celebrities
• Business leaders and organized crime figures
• Banks and intermediaries that enabled these structures

Notable consequences:

• Iceland’s Prime Minister resigned.
• Investigations and prosecutions began in dozens of countries.
• Mossack Fonseca eventually shut down.

Why it mattered

• It showed that global inequality is reinforced not just by markets, but by legal and financial systems designed to protect wealth.
• It undermined public trust by revealing that elites often play by different rules.
• It led to reforms, transparency laws, and later leaks (e.g., Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers).

Bigger picture

The Panama Papers didn’t just expose corruption — they exposed a shadow financial system that operates parallel to normal law, often technically legal but ethically corrosive.