The head of the Reserve Bank of India, part of the Indian government's task force to probe local implications of the Panama papers, says it is "dangerous" to "talk about whether entrepreneurial wealth is illegitimate."
"The fact that there are occasions when people are found to be hiding their wealth as in the Panama allegations essentially contributes to this process of de-legitimization," RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said.
It is worth remembering that the Panama papers, which represent only a tiny fraction of the money-laundering and tax-evasion problem, cover more than 210,000 companies in 21 offshore jurisdictions, and many thousands of individual beneficiaries.
Many Africans are hoping that the Panama papers will -- finally -- convince the world that corruption is not just an African problem. Here's an interview with economist Carl Manlan, head of the Africa Against Ebola Solidarity. In this bit, he is asked about a Ugandan company that seems to have used shell companies to avoid $400 million in taxes:
What does $400 million mean in someone's daily life when they cannot even get $2 a day?
People don't understand what it means that $400 million disappeared. We need to translate those numbers to the common man. How many people would have been treated for HIV? The treatment is about $100 a year, per person. For $400 million, that's a lot of people you can put on treatment.
The Independent has a piece on how the Panama papers leak got started and the fact that no one, not even the German journalists who have been in direct contact with the source, know his or her identity (at least, that is what they are saying).
More than a year after Doe first contacted them at their Munich-based newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Obermayer, 38, and Obermaier, 32, still have no idea who their source is or why he or she (or possibly they) came to them.
To protect Doe’s identity and safety, however, they remain purposely guarded about what they do know.
"We can’t disclose any numbers or times [of contact], of course, or if we are still in contact," Obermayer said in an exchange of emails on 6 April. "But we have communicated a lot, through different ways, all encrypted. On some days, I chatted more with the source than with my wife. We had a lot to talk about."
Salon also has a piece on the origin of the leak, noting that the source of most major leaks in the past quickly became known:
Readers of Panama Papers have just that one opening line — “I want to make these crimes public” — to explain the source’s motive, although as Sueddeutsche Zeitung and other outlets reporting on the story are required to explain, some uses for offshore accounts are perfectly legal; and, as many outlets have noted, Mossack Fonseca is just one cog in a giant industry supporting tax havens, key parts of which are in the United States.BBC has another piece on the fact that average Russians just don't care about the Panama leak or about any allegations of corruption within the ruling elite of President Vladimir Putin. Their correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, had this exchange with a woman in Elektrostal, an industrial town about two hours from Moscow:
At a newspaper kiosk I ask sales assistant Nadezhda what she thinks of the Panama Papers, and claims of a money laundering ring close to the Kremlin.
"I have a very negative attitude… towards you!" Nadezhda replies.
"That's a pity," I respond, "I don't have a negative attitude towards you."
"It's nothing personal," explains Nadezhda. "You seem quite a decent person. It's your country I don't like and its scheming. All these 'investigations' are a waste of time and money. We know what you're up to."
Yesterday, RFE/RL had this video in which the montage of Russian "opinions" about the revelations speaks volumes with the single word "Nyet."
Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution has his own conspiracy-theory take on the Panama leaks. Putin says it was a CIA plot -- but what if it was really a Kremlin plan to rock global capitalism?
In sum, my thinking is that this could have been a Russian intelligence operation, which orchestrated a high-profile leak and established total credibility by “implicating” (not really implicating) Russia and keeping the source hidden. Some documents would be used for anti-corruption campaigns in a few countries—topple some minor regimes, destroy a few careers and fortunes. By then blackmailing the real targets in the United States and elsewhere (individuals not in the current leak), the Russian puppet masters get “kontrol” and influence.
If the Russians are behind the Panama Papers, we know two things and both come back to Putin personally: First, it is an operation run by RFM, which means it’s run by Putin; second, it’s ultimately about blackmail. That means the real story lies in the information being concealed, not revealed. You reveal secrets in order to destroy; conceal in order to control. Putin is not a destroyer. He’s a controller.
Reuters reports that the U.S. Treasury Department has accelerated plans to issue a long-stalled rule "forcing banks to seek the identities of people behind shell-company account holders."
In mid-2014, Treasury's anti-money laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), issued a proposed rule on beneficial ownership. Differences of opinion between the various financial regulators vetting the rule and an obligatory analysis of costs to industry has slowed the process, as has pushback from the banking industry.
The FinCEN rule is expected to require only that banks and brokerage firms request information from customers regarding beneficial owners, but not require them to verify that information through investigation.
USA Today found a Mossack Fonseca partner company in a tiny office in the center of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Within that suite, however, is yet another company: AAA Corporate Services Inc., which serves as M.F. Corporate Services Wyoming LLC's registered agent, according to state records. Under Wyoming law, any business established in the state must have a physical presence to receive legal papers and other documents.
Wednesday, inside AAA Corporate Services' second-floor office, stacks of hand-addressed envelopes sat neatly on general manager Linda Gaynor's desk, awaiting the afternoon mail pickup.
Gaynor acknowledged her company serves as an agent for many out-of-state companies but declined further comment.
This hard-hitting op-ed on The Guardian website gives voice to some of the outrage that people in the United States feel reading about the Panama leak, considering the country has been debating for ages whether it can afford infrastructure repair or raising the minimum wage.
But while working and middle-class families pay their taxes or face consequences, the Panama Papers remind us that the worst of the 1% have, for years, essentially been stealing access to Americans’ common birthright, and to the benefits of our shared endeavors.
Worse, many of those same global elite have argued that we cannot afford to provide education, healthcare or a basic standard of living for all, much less eradicate poverty or dramatically enhance the social safety net by guaranteeing every American a subsistence-level income.
Here is the video of part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's response on April 7 to a question about the Panama leak's allegations of personal corruption and corruption among his senior officials, with English subtitles: