International "Panama Papers": defendants acquitted in financial scandal

Eight years after the revelation of the global financial scandal of the "Panama Papers", the 28 defendants have been surprisingly acquitted, including German-born lawyer Jürgen Mossack. This was announced by the court in Panama City on Friday. The judge in charge, Baloísa Marquínez, also ordered the criminal proceedings against Ramón Fonseca Mora, who has since died, to be dropped.

The chain of custody of the evidence collected from the servers of the now defunct law firm Mossack Fonseca was not comprehensible. The judge also ruled that the other evidence was insufficient and inconclusive.

The defendants were accused of money laundering through the establishment of 215,000 letterbox companies in tax havens, in which politicians, celebrities and athletes are said to have concealed their assets.

In spring 2016, the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and other media outlets of the Investigative Journalists' Network (ICIJ) revealed the transactions of the shell companies set up in Panama. A huge data leak resulted in 11.5 million documents being leaked to the newspaper. Almost 400 reporters from more than 80 countries took part in the research.

SDA