Goran Lefkov
Mossack Fonseca is one of the most famous cases ever reported in the world of investigative journalism. The reason for this is over 11 million documents that emerged from the company Mossack Fonseca, which was used by many billionaires for money laundering. They used tax havens, where the trail of criminally acquired wealth was concealed. The history of this story began in 2015.
Mossack Fonseca was a Panamanian law firm and a corporate services provider. It was once the fourth largest offshore financial services company in the world. From its founding in 1977, until the release of the Panama Papers in April 2016, the company was largely unknown, despite being at the heart of the global offshore industry and acting for some 300,000 companies. More than half were registered in British tax havens, as well as in Great Britain.
The company drew global media attention in April 2016, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published information about its clients’ financial dealings in the Panama Papers articles. The documents covered the period from 1970 to 2015. The affair involved at least 140 politicians from more than 50 countries in tax evasion schemes.
On March 14, 2018, the company announced that it was closing due to the damage done to its finances and reputation by uncovering multibillion-dollar money laundering schemes.
The company was founded by the German lawyer Jürgen Mossack in 1977 and was joined by Panamanian lawyer Ramon Fonseca in 1986. A third member came later, the Swiss lawyer Christoph Zollinger.
The company also housed several companies incorporated in Panama within its offices. It was one of the largest companies in the corporate services industry. However, the founder claimed that its volume represented only about 5% of the global financial services legal industry. According to the Economist magazine, the firm had 5 to 10% of the global market for offshore services companies.
There were only 3 names of some anonymous businessmen from Macedonia in this affair.
