Related Articles
Mossack Fonseca, the company that is at the center of the #PanamaPapers saga, has stated that they are the victims in the situation because their servers were hacked.
The founding partner of the Panamanian law firm, Ramon Fonseca, 63, stated that “We rule out an inside job. This is not a leak. This is a hack,” telling reporters at his company’s headquarters in the capital of Panama. He goes on to say, “We have a theory and we are going to follow it.”
The company has already filed a complaint with the Prosecutor of Panama, and Fonseca said a ‘government institution’ was already studying the issue at hand.
German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung obtained millions of documents and company emails, and with other media organizations which included the BBC and The Guardian, they looked and combed through the files. According to the U.S based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the documents tied the Panamanian company to some influential and powerful people which include, Russian oligarchs, former and current heads of states and the beleaguered world soccer governing body.
Following accusations he had offshore accounts, which were revealed in the documents, the Icelandic Prime Minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, resigned on Tuesday.
The documents also list more than 30 companies which are apparently blacklisted by the U.S for evidence of conducting business with the drug lords, terrorist organizations and rogue nations which include North Korea.
The records in state incorporation show that the company helped set up nearly 1,100 business entities in the US alone since 2001. The controversy around the company is about its work in helping foreign customers and goes back 40 years to the time the company started operating in the 1970s up to and including the end of last year.
The Justice Department was also reviewing the reports, Leslie Caldwell, head of Criminal Division said on Tuesday without any further comment.
Ramon Fonseca denounced the ‘witch hunt’ in front of reporters and said some critical emails had been taken out of context. “The only crime that has been proven is the hack. No one is talking about that. That is the story,” he said. “We are amazed that nobody has said: ‘Hey, a crime has been committed here.”
The company’s public relations director, Carlos Sousa stated that the firm never really, allowed use of their businesses with individuals who had connections to rogue nations like North Korea, Zimbabwe and Syria and any other country that might be regarded as a threat to any country’s national security.
He accused journalists of gaining unauthorized access to proprietary documents and information taken from the company.
“We trust that you are acutely aware that using information/documentation unlawfully obtained is a crime, and we will not hesitate to pursue all available criminal and civil remedies,” the company said.
