Eight years after the leak of 11 million confidential financial documents, a court in Panama acquitted over two dozen defendants on Friday. The prosecutors had aimed for prison terms related to money laundering.
The Panama Papers scandal brought to light a network of tax havens involving prominent figures such as Lionel Messi and Africa’s wealthiest man Aliko Dangote. The Mossack Fonseca law firm and its partners were accused by Panamanian prosecutors of establishing offshore companies to conceal funds associated with illicit activities in the “car wash” corruption case of the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. Some of these shell corporations were utilized for fraudulent purposes, tax evasion, or circumventing international sanctions.
Judge Baloisa Marquinez dismissed the money laundering charges due to insufficient evidence. She noted that the data obtained from the law firm’s servers did not adhere to proper legal procedures, casting doubt on its reliability and credibility.
Mossack Fonseca was previously ranked as the world’s fourth-largest offshore law firm. Following the scandal, the Panamanian government implemented measures to disclose the true beneficiaries of limited liability companies and their assets.
The investigation, based on a massive leak of 11.5 million documents to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, uncovered the hidden financial dealings of some of the globe’s wealthiest and most influential public figures. These revelations sparked demonstrations, official inquiries, and the resignation of Iceland’s prime minister.
