About the Panama Papers○Süddeutsche Zeitung SZ (2016.04.04)
By Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Vanessa Wormer and Wolfgang
Jaschensky
Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche
Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack
Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous
offshore companies around the world. These shell
companies enable their owners to cover up their business dealings, no
matter how shady.
In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow
far beyond the original leak. Ultimately,
SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of data,
making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with. The source wanted neither financial compensation nor
anything else in return, apart from a few security measures.
The data provides rare insights into a world
that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major
banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates
of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, Fifa
officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and
professional athletes.
A group effort
The Süddeutsche Zeitung decided to analyze the data in
cooperation with the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). ICIJ had already coordinated the research for
past projects that SZ was also involved in, among them Offshore Leaks, Lux
Leaks, and Swiss Leaks. Panama Papers is
the biggest-ever international cooperation of its kind. In the past 12 months, around 400 journalists
from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries have taken part in
researching the documents. These have
included teams from the Guardian and
the BBC in England, Le Monde in France, and La Nación in
Argentina. In Germany, SZ
journalists have cooperated with their colleagues from two public broadcasters,
NDR and WDR. Journalists from the Swiss Sonntagszeitung and
the Austrian weekly Falter have also worked on the project, as
have their colleagues at ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster. The international team initially met in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer and London
to map out the research approach.
Making of The data
The Panama Papers include approximately 11.5 million documents – more
than the combined total of the Wikileaks Cablegate, Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks,
and Swiss Leaks. The data primarily
comprises e-mails, pdf files, photo files, and excerpts of an internal Mossack
Fonseca database. It covers a period spanning from the 1970s to the spring of 2016.
Moreover, the journalists crosschecked a large number of documents,
including passport copies. About two years ago, a whistleblower had already sold
internal Mossack Fonseca data to the German authorities, but the dataset
was much older and smaller in scope: while it addressed a few hundred offshore
companies, the Panama Papers provide data on some
214,000 companies. In the wake of
the data purchase, last year investigators searched the homes and offices of
about 100 people. The Commerzbank was
also raided. As a consequence of their
business dealings with Mossack Fonseca, Commerzbank, HSH Nordbank, and
Hypovereinsbank agreed to pay fines of around 20 million euros, respectively. Since then, other countries have also acquired
data from the initial smaller leak, among them the United States, the UK, and
Iceland.
The system
The leaked data is structured as follows: Mossack Fonseca created a folder
for each shell firm. Each folder
contains e-mails, contracts, transcripts, and scanned documents. In some instances, there are several thousand
pages of documentation. First, the data had to be systematically indexed to make
searching through this sea of information possible. To this end, the Süddeutsche Zeitung used Nuix, the same program that
international investigators work with. Süddeutsche
Zeitung and ICIJ uploaded
millions of documents onto high-performance computers. They applied optical character recognition
(OCR) to transform data into machine-readable and easy to search files. The process turned images – such as scanned
IDs and signed contracts – into searchable text. This was an important step: it enabled
journalists to comb through as large a portion of the leak as possible using a
simple search mask similar to Google.
The journalists compiled lists of important politicians, international
criminals, and well-known professional athletes, among others. The digital processing made it possible to
then search the leak for the names on these lists. The "party donations scandal" list
contained 130 names, and the UN sanctions list more than 600. In just a few minutes, the powerful search
algorithm compared the lists with the 11.5 million documents.
The research
For each name found, a detailed research process was initiated that
posed the following questions: what is this person’s role in the network of
companies? Where does the money come
from? Where is it going? Is this structure legal?
Generally speaking, owning an offshore company is not illegal in itself.
In fact, establishing an offshore
company can be seen as a logical step for a broad range of business
transactions. However, a look through
the Panama Papers very quickly reveals that concealing the identities of the
true company owners was the primary aim in the vast majority of cases. From the outset, the journalists had their
work cut out for them. The providers of
offshore companies – among them banks, lawyers, and investment advisors – often
keep their clients’ names secret and use proxies. In turn, the proxies’ tracks then lead to
heads of state, important officials, and millionaires. Over the course of the international project,
journalists cooperated with one another to investigate thousands of leads: they
examined evidence, studied contracts, and spoke with experts.
Among others, Mossack Fonsecas’ clients include criminals and members of
various Mafia groups. The documents
also expose bribery scandals and corrupt heads of state and government. The alleged offshore companies of twelve
current and former heads of state make up one of the most spectacular parts of
the leak, as do the links to other leaders, and to their families, closest
advisors, and friends. The Panamanian law firm also counts almost 200 other
politicians from around the globe among its clients, including a number of
ministers.
The company
The company at the center of all these stories is Mossack Fonseca, a
Panamanian provider of offshore companies with dozens of offices all over the
world. It sells its shell firms in
cities such as Zurich, London, and Hong Kong – in some instances at bargain prices. Clients can buy an
anonymous company for as little as USD 1,000. However, at this price it is just an empty
shell. For an extra fee, Mossack Fonseca
provides a sham director and, if desired,
conceals the company’s true shareholder. The result is an offshore company whose true
purpose and ownership structure is indecipherable from the outside. Mossack Fonseca has founded, sold, and managed
thousands of companies. The documents
provide a detailed view of how Mossack Fonseca routinely accepts to engage in
business activities that potentially violate sanctions, in addition to aiding
and abetting tax evasion and money laundering.
About Süddeutsche Zeitung
Headquartered in Munich, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) is
one of Germany’s leading newspapers. SZ
has a total readership of 4.4 million for its print and online media. Its investigative journalism team counts five
people, three of which are members of the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The Süddeutsche
Zeitunghas won a number of prestigious awards for its research work. Its team has cooperated with other media
organizations on a number of projects, including Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks,
and Lux Leaks, which ICIJ coordinated. At the beginning of 2015, an anonymous
source began sending the Süddeutsche Zeitung data from Mossack
Fonseca, a provider of offshore companies. This marked the beginning of the
Panama Papers project.
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