Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money

[Octafish]

[font size="1"]"Conspiratorial Wink" (detail) by Michael Samuels [/font size]

Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money

12 world leaders maintain offshore entities

Putin’s oldest friends shuffle $2 billion around

Soccer stars, billionaires and friends of powerful named

BY KEVIN G. HALL AND MARISA TAYLOR
Sacramento Bee, April 3, 2016
McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A massive leak of documents has blown open a window on the vast, murky world of shell companies, providing an extraordinary look at how the wealthy and powerful conceal their money.

Twelve current and former world leaders maintain offshore shell companies. Close friends of Russian leader Vladimir Putin have funneled as much as $2 billion through banks and offshore companies.

Those exposed in the leak include the prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, an alleged bagman for Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close pal of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and companies linked to the family of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

SNIP...

The data breach occurred at a little-known but powerful Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which has an office in Las Vegas, a representative in Miami and a presence in more than 35 other places around the world.

The firm is one of the world’s top five creators of shell companies, which can have legitimate business uses, but can also be used to dodge taxes and launder money.

CONTINUED...

http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/article69729112.html

Wonder who and what they'd find if banks were to leak all the offshore tax dodgers?

[cantbeserious]

1. Panama Papers WebSite Link

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/

[Octafish]

3. WikiLeaks of the Mega-Rich

http://fusion.net/story/287227/famous-presidents-shell-companies-trove/

Thank you for the heads-up, cantbeserious! Amazing work, their part in this amazing story.



Reminds me of the late, great artist Mark Lombardi.

Lombardi chronicled the Bush-Bath-bin Ladin connection in 1999. The next year he was dead, a suicide. After September 11, the FBI showed up at the gallery to photograph his work.



George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens
c. 1979-90, 5th Version
1999

"Obsessive—Generous"

Toward a Diagram of Mark Lombardi

by Frances Richard
wburg.com

Who is James R. Bath?

A nodal point in Mark Lombardi's drawing George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens c. 1979-90, 5th Version, 1999, James R. Bath appears in the upper lefthand corner of the 16 1/2" x 41" piece of paper. The spatial syntax of Lombardi's drawings—which map in elegantly visual terms the secret deals and suspect associations of financiers, politicians, corporations, and governments—dictates that the more densely lines ray out from a given node, the more deeply that figure is embroiled in the tale Lombardi tells. Thirteen lines originate with or point to James R. Bath, more than any other name presented. Among those linked to this obscure yet central character are George W. Bush, Jr., George H.W. Bush, Sr., Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, Governor John B. Connally of Texas, Sheik Salim bin Laden of Saudi Arabia, and Sheik Salim's younger brother, Osama bin Laden.

The drawing is done on pale beige paper, in pencil. It follows a time-line, with dates arrayed across three horizontal tiers. These in turn support arcs denoting personal and corporate alliances, the whole comprising a skeletal resume of George W. Bush's career in the oil business. In other words, the drawing, like all Lombardi's work, is a post-Conceptual reinvention of history painting, a document of factually verifiable yet extremely pared-down relationships limned in a double light of international fame and cryptic realpolitik. Or rather, the light is triple. For, though he possessed the instincts of a private eye and the acumen of a systems-analyst, Lombardi was of course an artist, and from the raw material of wire-service reports and books by political correspondents, he drew not only chronicles of covert, high-stakes trade, but technically pristine and sensually compelling visual forms. His project's sources are profoundly art-historical, even as they are obviously journalistic, and the creative tension between abstracted, self-propelling image and direct verbal communication propels his work. Delicately balanced and gracefully enlaced, these lines and circles read from across the room as purely retinal explorations of two-dimensional space. Their stylized complexity, however, lures the eye in, to a point where language registers as legible and referentiality asserts itself through the scrim of form. A narrative emerges. Looking shifts toward reading, and Lombardi's one-two punch lands.

James R. Bath, it turns out, is a Texas businessman, a sometime aeronautics broker whose firm, Skyway Aircraft Leasing, LTD., was a Cayman Islands front amassing money for use by Oliver North in the Iran-Contra affair. Bath also served as an agent minding American interests for a quartet of Saudi Arabian billionaires, one of whom was Sheik Salim bin Laden, the oldest son and heir of Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, father of fifty-four children including Osama. According to reports by the Houston Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, Time, and others, Bath did business in his own name but with the Saudis' money; tax records indicate that he collected a fee of 5% on their multimillion dollar American investments. In 1979, Bath contributed $50,000 to Arbusto Energy, a limited-partnership controlled by George W. Bush. As Bath had little capital of his own, oil insiders trace the funds to his silent partners, specifically Salim bin Laden. Such cash infusions from Bath's client sheiks and George H.W. Bush's cartel cronies could not, however, prop Arbusto up. The venture collapsed in 1981 and merged into the Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation. Spectrum—still with W. at the helm—evolved through more near-failures and mergers into Harken Energy, which, in 1990, embarked upon a sweetheart deal to drill oil wells in Bahrain—this regardless of the fact that Harken had never drilled an overseas well, nor a marine well of any kind. Oil industry cognoscenti again assume that the Bahrain contract was orchestrated as a favor from the Saudis to the American chief executive and his family. The favor paid. On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold two-thirds of his Harken stock at $4 per share. Eight days later, Harken finished the second quarter with losses of $23 million; the stock promptly lost 75% of its value, finishing at just over $1 per share. Two months later, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the Gulf War began. All these events are cited in Lombardi's drawing.

Meanwhile, another Bath associate, Sheik Khalid bin Mafouz, was involved in the collapse (in July, 1991) of the Bank of Credit and Commerce, International, better known as BCCI. Among the sins of the Pakistani-owned BCCI were money-laundering on behalf of Colombian druglords, arms brokering, bribery, and aid to terrorists; when this cabal came unglued, millions of investors in seventy-three countries lost their life-savings. Although Bath was not personally implicated in the BCCI fiasco, an estranged business partner claims that that he, Bath, had been recruited to the CIA in 1976-77 by George Bush, Sr., after serving in the Texas Air National Guard as the buddy of George Bush, Jr. (in 1972, the two young men narrowly escaped arrest for cocaine possession). Bath's putative CIA connections, the Agency's operations in the Middle East, and the adventures of BCCI thus compose a kind of symmetry. The byzantine saga of BCCI's demise is plotted in the drawing that is perhaps Lombardi's masterwork, BCCI-ICIC-FAB, c. 1972-1991, (4th Version), 1996-2000. Unveiled in the landmark P.S. 1 exhibition "Greater New York" in 2000, this piece signaled Lombardi's arrival at the cusp of art world fame; it is now in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum. A wall-size panel schematizing twenty years of suspect alliances amongst scores of players, BCCI-ICIC-FAB… was the last major work the artist made before his death.

For those who followed the BCCI scandal—or the Harken Energy/insider trading scandal, or the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro scandal, or the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, or any of Lombardi's pet juggernauts—these diagrams summarize rather than amend available knowledge. He was always careful to explain that he did not conduct primary investigations, but culled his information exclusively from the public record; a basic Internet search yields multiple references to the Bath/Bush/bin Laden connection. However, ferreting out and adding up in one's own head the myriad fragments scattered across the infotainment megascape is a very different experience from standing before Lombardi's rhythmic plots. In the strangely contemplative and yet galvanizing presence of these images, the graphic equilibrium with which he invests his subjects is transformative. To track these events in the context of the drawings is to experience their import freshly, to undergo a shock of mixed recognition and surprise.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wburg.com/0202/arts/lombardi.html

A particularly relevant detail:



More detail on the artist and his work:

Mark Lombardi and the Ecstasy of Conspiracy

Michael Bierut

With the 40th anniversary of the assassination of JFK freshly behind us, our abiding romance with conspiracy theories seems more ardent than ever. And one of the most remarkable expressions of that romance is on view at The Drawing Center in New York, "Global Networks," an exhibition of the work of Mark Lombardi. In an age where we all dimly sense that The Truth Is Out There, Lombardi's extraordinary drawings aim to provide all the answers.



Although Lombardi's work has combined the mesmerizing detail of the engineering diagram and the obsessive annotation of the outsider artist, the man was neither scientist nor madman. Armed with a BA in art history, he began as a researcher and archivist in the Houston fine arts community with a passing interest in corporate scandal, financial malfeasance, and the hidden web of connections that seemed to connect, for instance, the Mafia, the Vatican bank, and the 1980's savings and loan debacle. His initial explorations were narrative, but in 1993 he made the discovery that some kinds of information are best expressed diagrammatically.

The resulting body of work must be seen to be believed — an admittedly oxymoronic endorsement of subject matter of such supreme skepticism. Lombardi's delicate tracings, mostly in black pencil with the occasional red accent, cover enormous sheets of paper (many over four feet high and eight feet long), mapping the deliriously Byzantine relationships of, say, Oliver North, Lake Resources of Panama, and the Iran-Contra operation, or Global International Airways and the Indian Springs State Bank of Kansas City. Because the work visualizes connections rather than causality, Lombardi was able to take the same liberties as Harry Beck's 1933 map for the London Underground, freely arranging the players to create gorgeous patterns: swirling spheres, hopscotching arcs, wheels within wheels.



Detail, Mark Lombardi, George W. Bush, Harken Energy, and Jackson Stephens, ca. 1979-90 (5th version), 1999

Lombardi was indeed an enthusiastic student of information design, a reader of Edward Tufte and a collector of the charts of Nigel Holmes. But if the goal of information design is to make things clear, Lombardi's drawings, in fact, do the opposite. The hypnotic miasma of names, institutions, corporations and locations that envelop each drawing demonstrates nothing if not the inherent -- the intentional -- unknowability of each of these networks. Like Rube Goldberg devices, their only meaning is their ecstatic complexity; like Hitchcockian McGuffins, understanding them is less important than simply knowing they exist.

Lomardi, who was born in 1951 and died in 2000, did not live to see today's historical moment, where his worldview seems not eccentric but positively prescient. His drawing BCCI-ICIC & FAB, 1972-91 (4th version) was studied in situ at the Whitney Museum by F.B.I. agents in the days after 9/11; reportedly, consultants to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security previewed the current show at the Drawing Center. One wonders whether he would have felt vindicated or alarmed by this kind of attention.

The catalog for the exhibition, which was organized by Robert Hobbs and Independent Curators International, cannot possibly do the drawings justice. But it may be worth it for the extended captions alone, each one of which could serve as an outline for a pretty decent John leCarre novel. And in what other art catalog could you find an index where (under the Cs alone) one finds Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment; capitalism; Capone, Al; Castro, Fidel, and conceptual art? And it is in the catalog that one finds, tossed away almost casually in a footnote, the following fact: "The police report cited suicide by hanging as the reason for Mark Lombardi's death. The door to his studio was locked from the inside." That last detail is an all-too-common device in mystery novels, where it inevitably raises the same question: yes, that's how it seems, but what really happened? Mark Lombardi's work tries, valiantly, to answer that very question.

11.24.03

http://www.designobserver.com/archives/000072.html

This history is vital for those interested in Democracy. If we keep going down the path of the money trumps peace crowd, nothing awaits us worth sharing.

[LiberalArkie]

31. Jackson Stevens ties also to the Clintons, Alltel, Systematics, Beverly Enterprises

and know what.

[Ferd Berfel]

129. wondering how long it will be before the clintons and their foundation are implcated

in this mess. Not rumor, actual implication.


Wonder if that will have ANY impact on her supporters?

[LiberalArkie]

131. I don't think they will be and if they were it would not make any difference at all.

[Ferd Berfel]

132. I think it would make one hellofa difference to allot of people.

well see.

[LiberalArkie]

135. The way I see it is that most of the HRC supporters are for big business less regulation.

So for information to come out that HRC & company are using hedge funds, off shore banking or stashing their money in tax free foundations so they do not have to show the money, well that is to a lot of people the American way. That is why people have tax accountants to do their taxes, to find ways of shielding their money from the tax man. It is too bad that the people at the bottom have no way of doing such things.

I am lucky in that this is the first year I don't have to pay any taxes at all. With my social security and pension it isn't enough to file a tax return.

[Ferd Berfel]

136. they're called republicans

[LiberalArkie]

138. Pretty much so. Or Civil rights Republicans.

[AtheistCrusader]

133. Of course not, it'll be all 'we had NO idea what that investment firm was up to, we're as outraged

as you are' lie lie lie, genuflect, hide from the media.

[valerief]

94. Fascinating. Thanks! nt

[Baitball Blogger]

112. Amazing!

[MrMickeysMom]

56. Some of the links must be so busy, they don't load...

It's the link to celebrity and others who are involved with this money laundering, I believe.

[blm]

2. Important read. Putin's fanclub here won't like it.

.

[Octafish]

16. Leak from just one firm. Imagine what the rest of them have, helping offshore tax dodgers?

Based on past experience in the S&L scams, I strongly suspect a lot of the money "lost" in the great Bankster Bailout has gone offshore. Here's stuff that's come out about people who've never even asked themselves if they were a communist.

Check Out Who's Hiding $32 Trillion in Offshore Tax Haven Accounts

EXCERPT...

Some $32 trillion has been hidden in small island banking hubs which host a bevy of trust funds, shell corporations and other tax havens, the Tax Justice Network estimates.

SNIP...

The information is still being sifted through, even as it's being released to the public, but here's some of what's been found so far:

■ American Denise Rich, ex-wife of pardoned tax cheat Marc Rich, has been uncovered as the settlor and beneficiary of two large trusts based in the tiny Cook Islands. The ICIJ found that Denise Rich gave up her American citizenship in 2012. Her citizenship was convenient enough when President Clinton had the authority to pardon her ex-husband.

■ French President Francois Hollande, ardent socialist and tireless champion of the 75% marginal tax rate, appears in these documents, mostly by association. His campaign co-treasurer, Jean-Jacques Augier, has been forced to reveal the name of his Chinese business partner in a Caymans-based distribution company. Augier says he used his offshore company to make a large investment in China.

■ Australian actor Paul Hogan, of "Crocodile Dundee" fame, has lost about $35.3 million from an account that he used to offshore his "bonza" film royalties. His once-trusted tax adviser Philip Egglishaw ran off with Hogan's sizeable hidden offshore stash.

■ French banking scion Elie de Rothschild, of the famous banking family, has been named in the leaks. He was instrumental in setting up some 20 trusts and 10 holding companies in the Cook Islands, all extremely opaque in nature. His heirs have, not surprisingly, refused comment.

■ Brigitte Bardot's third ex-husband, Gunter Sachs, a millionaire industrialist, has been revealed as the owner of a huge, obscure wealth-masking machine: trust upon shell company upon holding company, almost ad infinitum, mostly based in the Cook Islands. The ICIJ has constructed an interactive map of Sachs' extensive offshore holdings and business networks. The network is fairly representative of the steps that many on this list have taken to hide their wealth away. You can marvel at its imponderable complexity here.

And these names are barely the tip of the iceberg. The shockwaves have already begun to spread through the corridors of wealth and power all over the world.

How Much is $32 Trillion?

It bears repeating: $32 trillion has been stashed away, off the books, by corporations and wealthy individuals.

CONTINUED...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40250.html

Offshore loot also represents money made from trafficking in drugs, guns and people. So...what can we do about it?

On My Mind

Tax Offshore Wealth Sitting In First World Banks

James S. Henry
07.01.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated July 19, 2010

Let's tax offshore private wealth.

How can we get the world's wealthiest scoundrels--arms dealers, dictators, drug barons, tax evaders--to help us pay for the soaring costs of deficits, disaster relief, climate change and development? Simple: Levy a modest withholding tax on untaxed private offshore loot.

Many aboveground economies around the world are struggling, but the economic underground is booming. By my estimate, there is $15 trillion to $20 trillion in private wealth sitting offshore in bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios, completely untaxed.

SNIP...

This wealth is concentrated. Nearly half of it is owned by 91,000 people--[font color="green"]0.001% of the world's population[/font color]. Ninety-five percent is owned by the planet's wealthiest 10 million people.

SNIP...

Is it feasible? Yes. The majority of offshore wealth is managed by 50 banks. As of September 2009 these banks accounted for $10.8 trillion of offshore assets--72% of the industry's total. The busiest 10 of them manage 40%.

CONTINUED....

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-taxation-tax-havens-banking-on-my-mind.html

Not only would that money balance the budget, erase the debt and fix the nation and world's problems from hunger and homeless to energy and education; it would free humanity to do better things than make war all the time. Might even help pay for saving the planet. But, no.

[glinda]

65. Better to lock them up and take all their wealth.

There has been irreputable damage to the Planet and all species.

[Octafish]

71. As Ambassador DeSadesky said: ''That is an astonishingly good idea you have there, Doctor.''

Rather than preparing all the mine shafts for survival of the 1-percent, it'd be a sight better to use their wealth to make a better world for all.

Agree with you 100-percent, glinda. Irreputable if hopefully not irreparable damage to the Planet. Too many species are gone. Humanity is irradiated, lead-poisoned and who knows what-else in the chemical burden.

The Chinese are pioneering environmental de-pollution systems. DIY gene splicers are rounding out the rough edges of vat grown organs. If Washington lost the ability to Think Big, humanity still has a shot.

[glinda]

72. They need to cool the planet and de-acicfy the ocean asap.

Plant like a son of a bitch too and stop taking forests away.

[Octafish]

109. Thank goodness for DU.

From DU2 in 2005:

A Planet Full of Hitlers

What's changed since -- besides the new wars and austerity, I mean?

[bemildred]

91. Yep, and forbid that sort of thing in the future too.

This "me me me me" stuff has to end. It's not how you run a planet.

[Angel Martin]

29. I would hate to be the guy who ends

up getting blamed for leaking this.

People who cause problems for Putin tend to have a high mortality rate.

[glinda]

64. Well one was just bumped off and will not be the last.

[FlatBaroque]

4. The Age of Aquarius

When all truths shall become known.

[Octafish]

18. Interesting Times, Ours.

When that day comes, may love stream from our eyes and our hearts be light as the air.

[silvershadow]

5. Bumping, in response to the DU'er who dissed Octafish some time back on one

of my posts.

[Octafish]

69. Global Systemic Corruption

World War III isn't country against country over the planet: It's We the People against the Crooked Bastards, the planet over.



https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/716686234106601473/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

From 2013, important info from the late, great DUer xchrom:

Big Banks Are Knee-Deep in the Dirty Money-Laundering Business

Money-laundering issues at U.S. and UK financial firms shed light on role of rich nations and elite banks in the offshore world.

In the summer of 2009, Jennifer Sharkey was moving in select company. As a Manhattan-based vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Private Wealth Management group, she juggled relationships with 75 "high net worth" clients with assets totaling more than half a billion dollars.

Things changed for her, she claims, after she raised doubts about a "suspect" foreign client who had millions stashed in various accounts at the bank.

The client was making questionable cash transfers and concealing who actually owned certain accounts, according to a lawsuit Sharkey is pursuing in federal court in Manhattan. She also found evidence, her suit claims, that the client had falsified financial statements for one of his companies and that he'd been involved in the "unexplained disappearance" of millions of dollars in merchandise in another venture.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/big-banks-are-knee-deep-dirty-money-laundering-business

Systemic Corruption because the money's that good.

"One of the things that is interesting about reading conspiracy theory is that much of what folks think is conspiracy is really many people acting in concert to make or protect their money." - Catherine Austin Fitts

A big shot in Poppy's crew, Fitts got fed up with the corruption at the highest levels of government, business and finance. She's doing all she can to document corruption on Wall Street and Washington and helping those who give a damn do something about it. Her Narcodollars for Beginners deserves a Pulitzer.

PS: Thank you, silvershadow! Your friendship means the world to me.

[bemildred]

6. Panama Papers: Iceland’s prime minister had offshore holdings in collapsed banks

On May 15th, 2014, the prime minister of Iceland stood before parliament answering questions about how aggressively his government would sniff out tax cheats and fraudsters who use secret offshore companies. Would Iceland follow Germany’s lead by purchasing revealing data from offshore whistleblowers?

The prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, waivered.

It was “extremely important that people work together on this,” he agreed. But whether obtaining the information would be “realistic and useful” was unclear, he said.

What wasn’t known was that the offshore files Iceland was considering buying included offshore companies linked to him and at least two other top members of his ruling government.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/panama-papers-iceland-s-prime-minister-had-offshore-holdings-in-collapsed-banks-1.2593909

[Octafish]

21. MAURICIO MACRI, President of Argentina

MAURICIO MACRI

President of Argentina

Macri — who as president has vowed to fight corruption — is listed, with his Italian tycoon father Francisco and brother Mariano, as a director of Fleg Trading Ltd., incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009 — a financial connection Macri didn’t disclose on asset declarations when he was mayor of Buenos Aires. His spokesman said didn’t list Fleg Trading Ltd. as an asset because he had no capital participation in the company. The company, used to participate in interests in Brazil, was related to the family business group. “This is why Maricio Macri was occasionally its director,” he said, reiterating that Macri was not a shareholder.

------------------------

AYAD ALLAWI

Former Iraqi PM

A wealthy Iraqi exile who helped lead the push for war with Saddam Hussein, Allawi returned to Iraq to serve as prime minister in 2004. He also served as vice president s recently as last year. From 1985 to 2013, Mossack Fonseca helped run his Panama-registered company I.M.F. Holdings Inc. I.M.F. owned a house in Kingston upon Thames, England worth roughly $1.5 million, and another offshore company of his, Moonlight Estates Ltd., held a property in London. Representatives for Allawi confirmed that he “is the sole director and shareholder of Foxwood Estates Limited, Moonlight Estates Limited and IMF Holdings Inc.,” adding that he ran many of his house purchases through anonymous offshores “in light of an assassination attempt on him.” Indeed, he survived an attempt on his life in 1978, presumably by Saddam Hussein.

CONTINUED...

-- http://fusion.net/story/287227/famous-presidents-shell-companies-trove/

Beyond the Valley of the Dollars lies Hypocrisy Heights.

[bemildred]

23. Now that is fucking awesome. nt

[malaise]

28. Thieves all

looting their nations' treasuries and taking bribes from Tom, Dick, Harry and his brother

[LiberalArkie]

30. This may take a year for them to publish all the findings.

It is a fun year to be alive.

[malaise]

33. The worm is turning

The 1% will be scattering to the hills soon and very soon

[LiberalArkie]

37. Definitely a time I would not want to skip out on by not taking my meds.

Did you watch the making of video?

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56febff0a1bb8d3c3495adf4/

[malaise]

38. Thanks for that

[KoKo]

116. And this to go along with with that link:

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

https://panamapapers.icij.org/

[glinda]

66. Who are the Americans in all of this? Cannot believe we do not have

some big names to be outed.

[KansDem]

105. I wonder the same thing

Perhaps those names will be revealed soon

[fasttense]

117. Yeah, I think our media is working overtime to cover up the Americans involved.

I can't believe some of our crooked politicians (most from the RepubliCON side but plenty from the Democratic side too) don't have their hands in the middle of this.

Something is up if No US politicians are named.

[COLGATE4]

151. Don't hold your breath. nt

[MrMickeysMom]

58. "Beyond the Valley of the Dollars lies Hypocrisy Heights."...

That's pure gold, Octafish...

[bemildred]

7. The Panama Papers: 'Biggest Leak in History' Exposes Global Web of Corruption

'The story behind the #PanamaPapers?' tweets Edward Snowden. 'Courage is contagious.'

An anonymous source, an enormous cache of leaked documents, and a year-long investigative effort by around 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries have yielded the Panama Papers, an unprecedented look at how the world's rich and powerful, from political leaders to celebrities to criminals, use tax havens to hide their wealth.

The investigation went live on Sunday afternoon.

German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/03/panama-papers-biggest-leak-history-exposes-global-web-corruption

[Octafish]

57. Blows Against the Empire

Plutocrats and Oligarchs took a hit today like I've never seen before, thanks to a few good news organizations and journalists around the world. And the Internet does the work ABCNNBCBSFOXNOISENUTWORKS used to do, helping spread the word like nothing. Hardy har har.

[bemildred]

59. Twitter appears to be going nuts, and so is my news aggregator.

There are people complaining about the story not getting out and/or not being covered in US media. That seems to be true for Fox/MSNBC/CNN (one can easily guess why) but it's being picked up elsewhere like NYT.

[Octafish]

60. Demonstrates corrupt nature of America's press.

Blackout shows they fear the story may out a number of their Owners and Operators.

[bemildred]

62. Well, it is Sunday, and in the end they will all have to respond.

They may be able to stall a little now, but in the end ...

It's clever the way they did it, by including lots of journalists and publishing together they create a kind of herd immunity, can't shut them all up, can't kill them all, just stuck with it.

[Octafish]

68. 'The story behind the #PanamaPapers?' tweets Edward Snowden. 'Courage is contagious.'

An anonymous source, an enormous cache of leaked documents, and a year-long investigative effort by around 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries have yielded the Panama Papers, an unprecedented look at how the world's rich and powerful, from political leaders to celebrities to criminals, use tax havens to hide their wealth. -- Deirdre Fulton

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/03/panama-papers-biggest-leak-history-exposes-global-web-corruption

Like Flounder said in Animal House, "Oh boy! Is this great!"

[bemildred]

92. Indeed. Best show in town. nt

[bemildred]

9. Panama papers: Biggest data leak in history exposes offshore holdings of 12 current and former world

The biggest data leak in history has exposed the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders.

The leak from Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin were involved in a web of secret offshore deals and loans worth as much as $2 billion.

The offshore trail, which involves a massive 11.5million records, starts in Panama, and also travels into Russia and Switzerland.

Sergei Roldugin, who is Putin’s best friend, is at the centre of one scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it shows up in a ski resort where Putin’s daughter Katerina got married in 2013.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/panama-papers-biggest-data-leak-in-history-exposes-offshore-holdings-of-12-current-and-former-world-leaders-34595232.html

[Octafish]

96. Couldn't hurt Putin more if they tried. Same for Xi.

Those guys have reputations their PR built as corruption fighters. Their publics will not be amused.

[KoKo]

119. But, Octafish....

There is always the "Clinton Global Initiative" and the ties that may be exposed coming soon? Can't believe their isn't a connection somewhere to be revealed (given their donors and sizeable network) to offshore participants and maybe some names in this first round of releases.

But, aside from that... this truly is explosive news and thanks, as always, for your additional links!

[Octafish]

130. UBS is Phil Gramm's new home.

Yeah, see? Guy's a genius, see?



In the Chicago Old School
Big Al kind of way, see?

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever

PS: I went to GOOGLE and I typed in Octafish and before I could even get in a few letters of "Phil Gramm," GOOGLE finished finding what I was looking for. Amazing world we live in, KoKo. If we all work together, we can make a truly amazing future -- without destroying the planet or each other. All that's required is Democracy.

[KoKo]

154. Ted Cruz just named Phil Gramm his economic advisor. Here's Gramm's economic legacy:

(I'm not an Atheist, nor an Evangelical Christian..just a fallen away Episcopalian) so...... I just have to say about Phil & Wendy Gramm.. "Good Lord Deliver Us!"

For those Interested ....it is an interesting read.

-----------------

Ted Cruz just named Phil Gramm his economic advisor. Here's Gramm's economic legacy.

f it's true that a man can be judged by the company he keeps, what are we to make of the appointment of former Sen. Phil Gramm as economic advisor to the presidential campaign of Ted Cruz?

The short answer is that they're cut very much from the same economic cloth, which makes sense if one is advising the other. Here's a longer answer.

Cruz made the appointment Friday, when he collected Gramm's endorsement of his quest for the presidency. He cited Gramm's role as an opponent of the healthcare reform measures proposed in the 1990s by President Bill Clinton, as well as Gramm's record as a professor of economics at Texas A&M University before becoming a U.S. representative in 1979 and moving up to the Senate in 1985. He retired from Congress in 2002.

This is a mental recession....We've become a nation of whiners.

Ex-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) in 2008, just before the crash of Lehman Bros.

The distinguishing feature of Gramm's career in public service is hostility to regulation in almost every form. "Gramm, with his Southerner's mistrust of big government, believes that markets, left to their own devices, eventually will find the most efficient way of bringing together buyers and sellers," wrote former Securities and Exchange Chairman Arthur Levitt in his memoir, "Take on the Street." "'Unless the waters are crimson with the blood of investors,' he exclaimed in one meeting, with a finger in my chest, 'I don't want you embarking on any regulatory flights of fancy.'"

Gramm left a long record as a dedicated financial deregulator on Capitol Hill, with much of his effort aimed at freeing up trading in derivatives. That's why he's often identified as one of the godfathers of the 2008 financial crisis, which was spurred in part by banks' imprudent trading and investing in these extremely complex financial instruments.

Gramm's previous stint as a presidential campaign advisor ended inauspiciously. That was in 2008, when he served as co-chairman of John McCain's presidential run.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-cruz-gramm-20160321-snap-htmlstory.html

[Octafish]

156. Phil Gramm toils at UBS with Bill Clinton in WEALTH MANAGEMENT (cough OFFSHORING?).

I kid you not, KoKo.

After his exit from the US Senate, Phil Gramm found a job at Swiss bank UBS as vice chairman. He later brought in former President Bill Clinton to the Wealth Management team. What a coincidence, they are the two key figures in repealing Glass-Steagal. Since the New Deal it was the financial regulation that protected the US taxpayer from the Wall Street casino. Oh well, what are a few hundred million in speaking fees compared to a $16 trillion bailout among friends?



It's a Buy-Partisan Who's Who:

President William J. Clinton
President George W. Bush Heh heh heh.
Robert J. McCann
James Carville
John V. Miller
Paula D. Polito
Anthony Roth
Mike Ryan
John Savercool

SOURCE: http://financialservicesinc.ubs.com/revitalizingamerica/SenatorPhilGramm.html

One of my attorney chums doesn't like to see his name on any committees, event letterhead or political campaign literature. These folks, it seems to me, are past caring.

Some of why DUers and ALL voters should care about Phil Gramm.

Until Panama Papers, the nation's "news media" pretty much never talked about offshoring. Now, perhaps, they'll get to Phil Gramm and Co's work in "Wealth Management" via the offshoring story. After all, what better way to protect your wealth by hiding it where no one knows you have it, let alone can find it?

[KoKo]

160. Oh Yeah! Anyone involved in this Current Election...needs to Read those Links!

Incredibly Revealing....The Corruption!

Until Panama Papers, the nation's "news media" pretty much never talked about offshoring. Now, perhaps, they'll get to Phil Gramm and Co's work in "Wealth Management" via the offshoring story. After all, what better way to protect your wealth by hiding it where no one knows you have it, let alone can find it?

HIGH FIVES!

[bemildred]

10. 'Panama Papers' reveal how the rich hide money offshore

A massive leak of confidential documents has shed light on how some of the world's most prominent people exploit tax havens to hide their wealth. Russian President Vladimir Putin is among several leaders implicated.

http://www.dw.com/en/panama-papers-reveal-how-the-rich-hide-money-offshore/a-19161658

[Octafish]

97. Smirko Bush Jr talked about ways the rich use to keep getting richer...

"The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason - to pass the tax bill on to you." -- George W Bush, pretzeldent

In Panama were lawyers who could put the money in a place where no one would ever know it even existed until somebody decided to spill the beans.

[LiberalArkie]

11. More than half companies listed in #PanamaPapers are registered in British-administered tax havens

More than half companies listed in #PanamaPapers are registered in British-administered tax havens or UK itself
http://gu.com/p/4tvyz/stw

[Octafish]

98. David Cameron's father and senior Tories names were mentioned.

David Cameron's father and senior Tories named in 'Panama Papers' leak

More than 11 million documents show how the rich and powerful conceal their wealth

Adam Withnall
The Independent, April 4, 2016

David Cameron’s father, senior Tory peers and former Conservative MPs are among the hundreds of individuals named in an unprecedented leak of confidential documents showing how the world’s richest people shield their wealth offshore.

Though he is not named in the reports himself, the British Prime Minister is linked to the so-called “Panama Papers” by his late father Ian Cameron, who died in 2010.

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which coordinated the research into the 11 million secret files handed over by an anonymous source, Mr Cameron used Mossack Fonseca’s services to shield his investment fund, Blairmore Holdings Inc.

A 2006 prospectus for Blairmore Holdings Inc described Mr Cameron, a stockbroker and multi-millionaire, as “instrumental in [its] formation”.

It said the fund “should be managed and conducted so that it does not become resident in the United Kingdom for UK taxation purposes”.

CONTINUED...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-father-and-senior-tory-figures-named-in-panama-papers-leak-a6967116.html

It is like they bugged the nicest office in The City.

[bemildred]

12. Panama Papers leaked through server hack

Attack on Mossack Fonseca's email server leads to biggest data leak in recent history

Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has suffered a serious server hack leading to the leaking of 2.6TB of data relating to some of the most powerful people in the world.

The cache of 11.5 million leaked files is being referred to as "the Panama Papers" and was obtained from an anonymous source by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. It was then shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with the by The Guardian and BBC in the UK and other media outlets around the world.

Mossack Fonseca, the company the data originated from, is the fourth largest offshore law firm, according to The Guardian and both it and The BBC claim the documents show the firm has "helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax".

http://www.itpro.co.uk/data-leakage/26293/panama-papers-leaked-through-server-hack

[Octafish]

107. Look forward to learning more about Mossack Fonseca...

...and how their mountain sized database leaked.

Attack on Mossack Fonseca's infrastructure leads to biggest data leak in recent history

Jane McCallion
ITpro.com, April 4, 2016

A serious server hack at Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has led to the biggest information breach in recent years, with the release of of 2.6TB of data relating to some of the most powerful people in the world.

The cache of 11.5 million leaked files - primarily emails, but also PDFs, text files and others - is being referred to as "the Panama Papers" and was obtained from an anonymous source by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. It was then shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with the Guardian and BBC in the UK and other media outlets around the world.

Mossack Fonseca, the company the data originated from, is the fourth largest offshore law firm, according to The Guardian, and both it and the BBC claim the documents show the firm has "helped clients launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax".

For its part, Mossack Fonseca says it has operated beyond reproach for the past 40 years and has never been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

At 2.6TB, this is the largest data leak of the past several years - bigger than either WikiLeaks in 2010 or the NSA files in 2013.

It also seems that the method of extracting data, and potentially therefore the person who leaked it, is different too.

While the 2010 and 2013 US military and intelligence leaks were carried out by insiders (Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden respectively), Mossack Fonseca is blaming this leak on an attack on its email servers, according to Spanish news site El Español.

CONTINUED...

http://www.itpro.co.uk/data-leakage/26293/panama-papers-leaked-through-server-hack-1

IT came in through the backroom window. Talk about huge.

[bemildred]

108. It means an outsider hacked in.

Once they got access, they took their time about it, were thorough, covered their tracks.

And the perp learned from Snowden, he kept his identity secret.

If I had to guess, somebody did a little social engineering.

[KoKo]

121. "... bigger than either WikiLeaks in 2010 or the NSA files in 2013."

For its part, Mossack Fonseca says it has operated beyond reproach for the past 40 years and has never been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

At 2.6TB, this is the largest data leak of the past several years - bigger than either WikiLeaks in 2010 or the NSA files in 2013.

It also seems that the method of extracting data, and potentially therefore the person who leaked it, is different too.

While the 2010 and 2013 US military and intelligence leaks were carried out by insiders (Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden respectively), Mossack Fonseca is blaming this leak on an attack on its email servers, according to Spanish news site El Español.

[bemildred]

13. ‘Panama Papers’ link football’s wealthy to tax avoidance network

http://www.goal.com/en/news/14212/go-global/2016/04/03/21987522/-

[malaise]

34. Turns out that the FIFA ethics committee has a problem

[bemildred]

35. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt

[malaise]

36. All thieves

all the time

[bemildred]

61. Playing both sides

Here you go.

The past year was a tough one for FIFA, one that included an FBI investigation, arrests, and Sepp Blatter’s ban. Indeed, the world football association’s ethics committee, ostensibly its last bastion of decency, has had its work cut out for it lately. Not only did the committee suspend Blatter, it also banned UEFA boss Michel Platini, FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke, and a long line of other senior officials. They also investigated Franz Beckenbauer, chairman of the organization committee for the 2006 World Cup – Germany’s “summer fairytale” – and those who helped him make it happen.

The ethics committee’s credibility depends largely on the personal integrity of its leaders. Cornel Borbely, the Swiss lawyer who chairs the investigatory chamber, already has several complex investigations under his belt. The German chairman of the committee’s adjudicatory chamber, Hans Joachim Eckert, spent many years working as a criminal judge at Munich’s district court. It would be reasonable to expect that all members of these two bodies have been hand picked to serve as a corrective for the tarnished world football association. However, several of the 14 members were appointed during Blatter’s reign. In fact, three of them have sat on the ethics committee since it was established on October 23, 2006, including Juan Pedro Damiani.

---

Damiani is an influential attorney from Uruguay and one of the country’s wealthiest men. He is also president of Peñarol Montevideo, the country’s most popular football team. In Eckert’s chamber, he sits in judgments over potentially corrupt FIFA members. Now, as a result of the Panama Papers revelations, Damiani has a problem of his own: the ethics committee has launched a preliminary investigation of its own member.

Managing shell companies appears to be one of Damiani’s areas of expertise. The Panama Papers show that his law firm J.P. Damiani is among the bigger clients of Mossack Fonseca (Mossfon), a provider of offshore companies. Until now, Damiani’s firm has managed more than 400 such companies, many of which have been involved in scandals. The leaked documents reveal that Damiani, the FIFA ethics expert, also managed companies through which FIFA members may have received bribes.

http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/56fec130a1bb8d3c3495ae00/

[malaise]

85. It's hilarious when you think about it

All thieves all the time

[bemildred]

89. That is the way to bet.

And until people stop expecting politicans to be honest, because they are THEIR politicians, we will keep getting ripped off. The only way you know they aren't crooks is because you haven't caught them yet.

[malaise]

90. Well said n/t

[LiberalArkie]

14. 2.6 terabytes, 11.5 million documents, and 214,000 shell companies. Details

[klook]

100. Holy.

Shite.

That really puts this in perspective. This could take years to unfold. I can only imagine the frantic scrambling, issuance of threats, and reshuffling of alliances and allegiances happening in the offices of the .001 percent's protectors today.

[bemildred]

15. Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca leak reveals New Zealand used to keep tax secrets

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11616350

[Octafish]

170. Americans don’t need to go offshore.

The connection between Mossack Fonseca and Nevada raise another issue about why there may be so few American names in the Panama Papers: U.S. citizens don’t need to go far to find their own tax haven. “You don’t really have to go to Panama or other tax havens. They are not the only ones making it possible for corrupt officials and other criminals to launder their money. You can do it in every state in the U.S.,” Shruti Shah, vice-president of programs and operations at Transparency International, an anti-corruption organization, tells the Guardian. The Tax Justice Network ranks Panama as 13th in the “2015 Secrecy Ranking.” The U.S. comes in at number three.

SOURCE w/links: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/04/details_from_the_panama_papers_the_largest_leak_in_history.html

Thanks, bemildred. New Zealand is a special place. For instance, there anti-TPP protesters are free to gather without fear of getting shot.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/14/us-consulate-citizens-stay-away-new-zealand-tpp-protest

[LiberalArkie]

17. USA in this huge leak: 3072 companies, 441 clients

Can we just remind ourselves that the #PanamaPapers are from just ONE law firm, in just ONE tax haven. Tip of the proverbial iceberg.

[Octafish]

125. TIME: Panama Papers Could Lead to Capitalism’s Great Crisis

Leak shows what much of the world's 99% believes

by Rana Foroohar, TIME, April 4, 2016

It’s hard to know where to start in tallying up the explosive revelations in the Panama Papers, an analysis of leaked documents from global law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Yes, we’ve known for a while now that the shadow financial system was growing. But it’s another thing to take in 11.5 million documents showing the way in which Mossack Fonseca was working with big name financial groups like UBS, HSBC, Société Générale, and many others to help elites from the Communist Party leadership of China, to soccer star Lionel Messi, to global financiers hide cash in offshore havens around the world.

It’s just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. “The size of the leak is unprecedented, but the tricks Mossack Fonseca has allegedly used for its clients are neither new nor surprising. Anonymous shell companies and the failure of governments to require lawyers, corporate service companies, or banks to collect beneficial ownership information on clients leave the door wide open for dirty money to flow around the globe virtually unhindered,” says Heather Lowe, the Director of Government Affairs for Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC-based consultancy.

To me, this is one of the key issues at work in the U.S. presidential election. Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That’s a large part of why both Sanders and Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot. Globalization is supposed to be about the free movement of people, goods, and capital. But in fact, the system is set up to enable that mobility mainly for the rich (or for large corporations). The result is global tax evasion, the offshoring of labor, and an elite that flies 35,000 feet over the problems of nation states and the tax payers within them.

Where do we go from here? I think we’re heading towards a root to branch re-evaluation of how our market system works–and doesn’t work. The debate over free trade is part of that re-evaluation. The calls for a global campaign against tax evasion are, too. I think there will also be intense scrutiny about the ease with which financial capital can move around the world – we’ve already seen that with the hoopla over tax inversions, but we’ll see a lot more backlash, in new areas.

“I expect that the populist backlash will be intense and will impact everything from high-end real estate to PACs (effectively political shell companies),” says one of my favorite sources, Peter Atwater, a behavioral economist. “Voters are increasingly angry at the seeming transience of the financial/corporate/political elite. The 1% can move anywhere they want—and profit handsomely from the relocation, but the 99% can’t. Worse, the 99% are left with the aftermath—the empty buildings of a deserted Detroit, the toxic waste from chemical plants in West Virginia or the unsustainable tax liabilities of Puerto Rico.”

CONTINUED...

http://time.com/4280864/panama-papers-capitalism/

PS: Going by the 3072 shoes waiting to drop, it doesn't look like a "limited hang-out" will help the Bastards this time.

[Sancho]

19. This is one reason that going after "Wall Street" is like regulating buggy whips...

...and the reason that Bernie is wrong and simplistic.

It will take regulating much broader regulation of more than banks, penalties for offshore businesses and accounts, international agreements with other countries to rein in the causes of economic inequality.

Hillary understands this and frequently speaks about it. It will be a war, and will take a multinational effort. Hillary has the experience and respect in the international community.

Any isolationist President without a worldwide audience cannot possibly turn around the economic hoarding and manipulations of the 21st century by tearing down our own markets and tearing up trade agreements. Only stronger agreements and cooperation with other governments will create new rules that can be enforced.

[DrBulldog]

27. LOL

[jomin41]

42. Well, those "buggy whips" did a lot of damage

to a lot of people. They damaged a whole generation (at least) of Americans, so screw your "simplistic" bullshit. Actually, not fixing our own house but instead promising some miraculous world-wide reform is a good evasion technique.

[Sancho]

83. You simply don't understand...

breaking up the NY banks is worthless when most large banks are not even US Banks!!!

There's more money in the Caribbean now than in NYC!

Bernie's "plan" is a waste of time.

You need to study the issue more. No one can fix "our house" because the problem is all the houses in the neighborhood - and we don't control the neighborhood. Bernie has old-fashioned ideas that sound good, but have no hope of doing anything useful even if enacted.

Breaking up US banks would do nothing. Closing tax loopholes might help. Most big banks are not in the US, and most influential money is not in the US. The US can't "break up" international banks, and without Congress cannot change the possibility of "influence".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks

1 China Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
2 China China Construction Bank Corporation
3 United Kingdom HSBC Holdings
4 China Agricultural Bank of China
5 United States JPMorgan Chase & Co.
6 France BNP Paribas
7 China Bank of China
8 Japan Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
9 France Crédit Agricole Group
10 United Kingdom Barclays PLC
11 United States Bank of America
12 Germany Deutsche Bank
13 United States Citigroup Inc
14 Japan Japan Post Bank
15 United States Wells Fargo
16 Japan Mizuho Financial Group
17 United Kingdom Royal Bank of Scotland Group
18 China China Development Bank
19 France Société Générale
20 Spain Banco Santander

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/wealthy-stashing-offshore_n_3179139.html

Global Super-Rich Stashing Up To $32 Trillion Offshore, Masking True Scale Of Inequality: Study

The global super-rich are stashing trillions of dollars offshore with the help of some of the world's biggest banks, putting billions of dollars out of the taxman’s reach and masking wealth inequality's true heights.

Wealthy people were hiding between $21 and $32 trillion in offshore jurisdictions around the world as of 2012, according to a 2012 study from the Tax Justice Network, an organization which aims to promote tax transparency. The study, highlighted by a recent Bloomberg News report, found that more than $12 trillion of that money was managed by 50 international banks, many of which received bailouts during the financial crisis, according to James Henry, the study’s author.

“There’s a lot more missing wealth in the world than we had known about from previous estimates,” Henry told The Huffington Post. “The real scandal is not all these individual scandals but the fact that world’s policy makers who know about this stuff, have basically done nothing.”

[KoKo]

122. He is aware of it....

He has addressed Loopholes and Offshoring. You think he doesn't know about this stuff? This release will give him the opportunity to be even more targeted and aggressive.

[revbones]

77. Yes, she certainly understands it's a war. Too bad she's not on our side. nt

[pampango]

82. You are right about the need for "stronger agreements and cooperation with other governments" but

we need to regulate and control our own 1% at the same time.

No one country is going to eradicate global wealth-hiding and tax evasion. It will take strict, enforceable international agreements to do that. Just as it will with climate change and many other global issues that require cooperation between many countries. But we need to put our own house in order at the same time.

[Sancho]

84. That's called Dodd-Frank, assuming that Congress doesn't dismantle it...

but there's nothing the US can do to regulate the international problem; and the real foundation of inequality and corruption is international.

http://www.davispolk.com/dodd-frank/

On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The legislation marks the greatest change to the financial landscape in decades, affecting the regulation of domestic and foreign financial institutions, banking entities and commercial companies. Many of the Dodd-Frank Act's provisions rely heavily on rulemaking and interpretation by financial regulators. Since Dodd-Frank's enactment, Davis Polk has offered a growing suite of resources to help institutions and market participants understand and comply with the new requirements and stay informed about recent rules, regulator studies, important dates and upcoming deadlines in the implementation process.

SOLVING THE "TOO BIG TO FAIL" PROBLEM: RESOLUTION AUTHORITY VS. CHAPTER 14
On June 20, 2012, Davis Polk lawyers Randall Guynn and John Douglas spoke on a teleforum entitled, “Solving the ‘Too Big to Fail’ Problem: Resolution Authority vs. Chapter 14.” The event was hosted by The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies’ Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group, and explores the Too Big to Fail problem in the post-Dodd-Frank era.
http://www.fed-soc.org/multimedia/detail/solving-the-too-big-to-fail-problem-resolution-authority-vs-chapter-14-podcast

http://www.c-span.org/video/?327191-3/washington-journal-roundtable-doddfrank-financial-law

[daleanime]

20. K&R....

And bookmarked.

[Octafish]

141. Europe's Regulators Probe Banks as Shell Company Scandal Spreads

Bloomberg, April 4, 2016

EXCERPT...

Swedish regulators have summoned Nordea Bank AB, Scandinavia’s biggest lender, to answer questions on assistance it allegedly provided to wealthy clients to help them evade taxes. Iceland’s prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson faces a no-confidence vote after the report showed that he and his wife Anna Sigurlaug Palsdottir had an offshore investment account created with the aid of Mossack Fonseca, the Panama-based law firm at the center of the scandal, to manage an inheritance. In comments to the ICIJ, the firm said it “does not foster or promote illegal acts,” and called the group’s allegations “unsupported and false.”

According to the ICIJ report, Palsdottir says she has always paid all her taxes owed on the Wintris account, which was confirmed by her tax firm, KPMG.

The series of reports by the journalists’ group reveals the shortcomings of Western governments’ efforts to crack down on offshore banking centers since the financial crisis. Centers like Panama are accused of hiding the source of funds gained from criminal activities and being used to evade tax. The government of Panama said it will cooperate with any legal probe resulting from the data leak, Agence France-Presse reported. The reports allege that politicians, criminals and celebrities worldwide have used banks and shell companies to hide their finances.

“This leak is proof that despite explicit banking laws against tax evasion, criminal uses and money laundering, the global offshore shell game business remains open for the wealthy and well connected,” Mark Williams, a lecturer at Boston University and author of "Uncontrolled Risk," a book on the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., said in an email. “More aggressive enforcement needs to be exercised against those firms that aid and abet.”

Finma, the Swiss regulator, said in an email it intends to “clarify” the extent to which Swiss banks may have used the services of Mossack Fonseca and whether banks violated Swiss provisions or banking supervisory rules. Shell companies and offshore holdings can be legal.

500 Banks

More than 500 banks in all requested that Mossack Fonseca and a predecessor firm create shell companies for their clients from 1977 through the end of 2015, according to the ICIJ. These included HSBC Group Plc, Credit Suisse, UBS AG, according to a summary compiled by the group. The banks, in comments, denied any wrongdoing.

CONTINUED...

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/europe-s-regulators-probe-banks-as-shell-company-scandal-spreads/42066356

Hiya, daleanime! Don't forget: Like banks, not all shell companies are bad. Just a lot of them.

[annabanana]

22. whine, whine, whine.."But we can't AFFORD healthcare for all,

or a higher minimum wage, or higher education, or, or, or.."

They have all our ponies and rainbows and unicorns LOCKED UP!

Free the Unicorns!

[Plucketeer]

39. 10 Bucks an hour seems good to me!

Myself, I get upwards of $225K per hour - but of course, I don't get that many hours in each year. So I can relate to a "living wage" like any regular sort - and ten bucks an hour seems more than fair to me!

[2cannan]

47. LOL! Love this! nt

[Octafish]

142. Oh! So, THAT's why all the Immunity for Banksters, Warmongers and Traitors.

Alfred McCoy explained why on Democracy Now, way back on May 1, 2009:

Historian Alfred McCoy: Obama Reluctance on Bush Prosecutions Affirms Culture of Impunity

EXCERPT...

AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about President Obama’s approach, on the one hand, releasing the torture memos — and I’d like you to respond to specifically what’s in those torture memos —

ALFRED McCOY: Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: — but then saying he will not be holding the interrogators responsible, people involved with it; we have to move forward, not move back.

ALFRED McCOY: Right. That’s exactly how you get impunity. That’s what’s happened every single time in the past. For example, in 1970, the House and Senate of the United States discovered that the Phoenix Program had been engaged in systematic torture, that they had killed through extraditial executions 46,000 South Vietnamese. That’s about the same number of American combat deaths in South Vietnam. Nothing was done. There was no punishment, and the policy of torture continued.

In 1994, for example, the US ratified the Convention Against Torture. There was no investigation of past practice. So, when that ratification went through, it was done in a way that in fact legalized psychological torture, because when we ratified that convention, we also, if you will, passed a reservation, which then got codified into US federal law, Section 2340 of the US Federal Code. In that code, we said that psychological torture, which is actually the main form of torture practiced by the United States since the 1950s, is basically not torture.

And we defined, very cleverly, under that code, what psychological torture is. We simply said it’s four things. It’s extreme physical pain, forced injection of drugs, threats against another, or doing that to a third party. OK? That’s all that psychological torture is. In other words, everything in those torture memos, all those techniques of belly slaps, face slaps, face grabbing, waterboarding, is, under US law, supposedly not torture, because when we — President Clinton ratified the UN Convention Against Torture, he didn’t look into the past, he didn’t discover what the nature of American torture was. And so, we’re now at a moment where if we don’t prosecute or don’t punish or don’t seriously investigate, that this will be repeated again.

Another thing that emerges from the memos is, in fact, that the Bush Justice Department is very well aware. If you read the May 2005 memo by the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Bradbury, he says, “Look, I can’t assure you that waterboarding is not torture. You know, the courts may find that it is torture. But don’t worry about it. Because you know what? The courts aren’t going to rule on this.” So in other words, don’t worry about the law, because the law doesn’t apply to you. The law will not be brought to bear. And that’s the problem of President Obama’s procedure. The men were assured that they could torture, because it wouldn’t come before the courts.

There’s another problem with those memos, as well. Those memos argue again and again that the most extreme of all the authorized CIA techniques, waterboarding, is not torture, because it does not violate that same Section 2340 of US Federal Code. But it does. Waterboarding is the most cruel, the most extremely cruel form of torture known to man, very simply because of this — and people don’t understand, I think, waterboarding. Amy, if you and I were riding in a car, and we went off a bridge in January here in Wisconsin and crashed through the ice and went down to the bottom of the Ohio River, within three minutes you and I would be dead from drowning. If there were an infant in a car seat behind us, that infant could survive for twenty minutes under water. A weak, fragile three-month-old infant could survive twenty minutes under water, be plucked by the rescue crew from the waters and suffer no brain damage, be perfectly fine. Alright? How can this happen? It’s the mammalian diving reflex. The human being is so afraid of death by drowning that we are hardwired into our biology, into our…

JUAN GONZALEZ: I want to —

ALFRED McCOY: — brains with this bizarre mammalian diving reflex. So, therefore, waterboarding, which induces this primal fear of death by drowning, is the most painful form of torture you can concoct. That’s why it’s existed for 500 years.

CONTINUED...

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/1/torture_expert_alfred_mccoy_obama_reluctance

Prof. McCoy warned us that it's business-as-usual for Empire and it will happen again -- unless it's punished and those responsible held accountable, which would make my rainbow unicorn sooooo really happy it wouldn't be funny.

[Duppers]

24. K & R

Bookmarking.


Unbelievable that anyone would trash Bernie on this thread And defend Hillary.

Thanks, OF.

[Octafish]

144. Lucy KOMISAR has been at the forefront of Offshore Banking...

Rather than the relative crumb off their table they would pay in income taxes, many, if not most, of the nation's elite elect to shield their wealth offshore.

An important resource for those interested in tracking the tax cheats -- the traitors I call the BFEE:

The Komisar Scoop.



Something Democrats, in particular, should remember when forming the party platform:

Marching Toward Greater Inequality

The Tax Havens of the Super-Rich

by SAM PIZZIGATI
CounterPunch
July 30, 2012

EXCERPT...

Maybe the rich are simply living large, wasting their astronomical incomes on caviar, private jets, and other luxuries. But wasteful consumption can’t explain the inequality paradox either. Deep pockets in America’s top 0.01 percent could shell out $5,000 every single day of the year and still have 93 percent of their annual incomes left to spend.

So what in the end can explain the inequality paradox? The London-based Tax Justice Network has an answer. The world’s super rich, the group has just reported, are squirreling away — and concealing — phenomenal quantities of their cash in secret global tax havens.

The Network’s new tax-dodging study “conservatively” computes the total wealth stashed in these havens at $21 trillion. That total could plausibly run as high as $32 trillion.

Americans make up, we know from previous research, almost a third of the global super rich. That would put the American share of unrecorded offshore assets as high as $10 trillion.

CONTINUED w LINKS...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/30/the-tax-havens-of-the-super-rich/

Tried bringing this up now and again on DU: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021051567

[Duppers]

146. Haikugal said it below..

"You bring the good stuff.."

Thank you!

[LiberalArkie]

25. And this is just DAY 1. The first release.

Just one law firm in one country. Maybe some other brave people will leak from other havens.

[Octafish]

167. President Obama has been tough on whistleblowers.

Mouths Wide Shut: Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

by JOHN FEFFER
CounterPunch, OCTOBER 9, 2015

EXCERPT...

At first, it seemed as though the new president was fully prepared to take the high road. He immediately signed an executive order banning torture and detention by the CIA. This move effectively shuttered the secret prisons the CIA was running to conduct its own foreign policy. And, with a stroke of the pen, he closed Guantanamo, the very not-secret place where all manner of abuses have taken place.

Unfortunately, Congress pushed back against the Guantanamo closure, forcing the administration to opt for Plan B by releasing the detainees in dribs and drabs. The Senate eventually voted to ban torture earlier this year, codifying the president’s order. But because the president didn’t fully repudiate the legal memorandum that authorized the torture programs — the “gloves come off” Memorandum of Notification (MON) of September 17, 2001 — he left open the possibility that the United States could again use such extreme tactics.

Indeed, the administration hasn’t revised or removed Appendix M, which authorizes a variety of abusive techniques and which the Bush administration added to the Army’s interrogation manual. Also, exploiting the same arguments used in the notorious MON, the administration expanded drone strikes, which eliminated the need for torture by eliminating the suspects altogether.

Plus, given the secrecy enshrouding the national security complex, no one could be entirely certain — including our elected representatives — whether the intelligence agencies were complying with these orders. In 2011, for instance, the administration authorized the secret detention and interrogation of a suspected Somali terrorist on a U.S. vessel in international waters. We’ll just have to take Washington’s word that the interrogators went by the book (the U.S. Army Field Manual, in this case). There were also reports of the United States handing over detainees to Afghan authorities despite evidence of human rights abuses.

But one of the most perplexing paradoxes of the administration has been its attitude toward whistleblowers. Surely if Obama the candidate was willing to take these moral positions on torture and secrecy, he would embrace all the people in government who risked their livelihoods to do the right thing.

And yet the Obama administration has been ruthless in its prosecution of whistleblowers. I recently had an opportunity to ask a trio of America’s bravest whistleblowers — John Kiriakou, Jesselyn Radack, and Tom Drake — to explain why the president came into office like a civil liberties lion and has behaved instead like a national security sheep (albeit one with very sharp teeth). Their responses were both revealing and depressing.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/09/mouths-wide-shut-obamas-war-on-whistleblowers/

Seems to me, the whistleblowers are the ones in jail and traitors who lied and their warmonger cronies who profit from war walk free.

[DrBulldog]

26. Can you say "Clinton Global Initiative"?

[stuffmatters]

44. Wouldn't be surprised CGI donors on this list awa in the Unaoil/Ahsani bribe machinery

The companion big story this week of global financial corruption, both corruptions result in destruction of democracy around the world.

[KoKo]

123. ..!

Good point...

[Jester Messiah]

137. She's probably up to her armpits in the whole sordid mess. n/t

[elljay]

32. Poor job creators!

So sad for all of the job creators who will now have to spend perhaps .0001% of their net worth on legal fees so they will get severely punished with a light slap on their wrists. I sure hope we give them some tax cuts to make up for this injustice!

[Jefferson23]

40. Recommend.n/t

[haikugal]

41. Wonderful Octafish! This will take a while....you bring the good stuff! Thanks! nt

[leveymg]

43. Anything that reveals how they hide their money is good journalism

[maindawg]

45. Hording wealth is not cool

How is it even legal ? How can there be an island where everyone stashes trillions of green back dollars ,cash. Not just some account with numbers on a ledger, like we all have. It's cash. How in God's earth do we permit this bull shit ? We are idiots. As far asnwho would be the best candidate to deal with this problem I would have to say that Bernie would be the better choice simply because he would not sign any legislation that had been written by ALEC. He is the only one who has said no TPP. Hillary wrote the dam TPP. It's a matter of this is the establishment folks. These millionaires right here. The people who are hording wealth ,extracted from America. Extracted from Europe and Japan.
I will not be surprised if the Clinton's name does not become connected once again to yet another scandal. They have been actively accumulating wealth at a rapid pace.
Bernie is worth about 500,000 . he's not even a half millionaire. I like that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

80. They're not hoarding it or stashing it on an island - they're hiding the flows

Either because the sources for their money are dubious or outright illegal, or they want to invest or loan it without paying tax. The money flows through Panama, the Caymans etc., and then into other countries where it buys property, goes into hedge funds which buy and sell companies, and so on. And the profits from that flow back to them, usually untraceably.

[krawhitham]

46. Zeitung responce to lack of U.S. individuals in the docs, saying "Just wait for what is coming next"

https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/716771686482202625

Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of U.S. individuals in the documents, saying "Just wait for what is coming next"

https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/716771686482202625

[JEB]

48. K&R for the original post and subsequent informative posts and links.

[allan01]

49. bookmarked for future reference

[Kittycat]

50. KRB, Waiting for the Clinton Global to drop on this one.

[bbgrunt]

51. doesn't this topic

belong in the CT section???

[Octafish]

99. Certainly does. Remember how Princess Christina of Spain is under indictment for tax evasion?

Her lawyers are gonna make out like it is all theory.

Following the tax fraud trial expected to last six months, the princess could face up to eight years in prison if a three-member panel of judges agrees the couple abused a real estate consulting firm described in court papers as a "front company" to bankroll a lavish lifestyle — including parties at their modernist Barcelona mansion, salsa dancing classes and vacations at expensive hotels.

-- http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-spanish-princess-trial-20160110-story.html

As for my friends on DU who like to watch out for me, ike bbgrunt, you know how much it means to me: The World.

[RadiationTherapy]

127. Thanks for what you do.

[2naSalit]

139. ...

[2naSalit]

52. Oh my!

This will certainly be a game changer.

[JEB]

53. Sounds like the belly of the beast has been ripped open.

It ain't gonna be pretty and it will certainly stink and it won't die easily, but this could be a mortal blow.

[Octafish]

149. UBS one of the 10 Banks that Requested the Most Offshore Companies for Clients

SOURCE: https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html

[navarth]

54. Bookmarking

Thank you Octafish

[felix_numinous]

55. K&R!!

Now duck to avoid all the poo being flung in our direction..they have a lot to spare.

[me b zola]

63. KRB

[Initech]

67. These people are leeches.

[underahedgerow]

70. This isn't news, this is information. None of this is a shock or scandal to anyone who is

the least bit familiar with finances in a world far outside of average family life in suburbia, with a job making 12 bucks an hour and dragging kids to day care.

This is the world of high-flying finance, where people actually own and use private jets, own cars (and rarely drive them) that are worth more than your house, wear clothing on one outing that costs more than most make in a year, and have holiday homes in some of the most amazing places on the planet.

It's just a different lifestyle is all. Most nations tax the UHNW people enormous amounts of money; it only makes sense to use legal tax avoidance devices whenever possible. Heck, that applies to everyone, really. The illegal tax avoidance? Well that's the business of doing business. It's pretty much falls into the victimless crime category and if someone is worth gazillions, it makes sense to do what they have to do to protect their assets. There literally are no penalties for such actions; siezure and penalties are nearly impossible.

Get all huffy if you want over how extremely wealthy people manage their assets, it doesn't do any good to give it a moment's worth of worry; it's always gone on, since the days when Vikings buried their stolen hoards of gold and goods.

[COLGATE4]

153. Thanks for bringing a moment of sense into

what has rapidly become a 'torch and pitchfork' array of 'hang them all' posts. Nothing either particularly new or shocking here. It's the way money responds to different taxing regimes.

[Ichingcarpenter]

73. Snowden tweet

Biggest leak in the history of data journalism just went live, and it's about corruption

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/716683740903247873


The Editor in Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of United States individuals in the documents, saying to "Just wait for what is coming next".


Now check CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS or Fox
to see if they have picked up on this story.

100 international reporters are studying this
humongous amount of data

[malaise]

87. I haven't heard a word on one of those networks

I'm shocked I tell you - shocked

[Octafish]

101. That is a clue about their true nature: CORRUPT.

I tried to bring it up when US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's children said their father thought the Warren Commission was "shoddy workmanship" and suspected a conspiracy was behind the death of his brother, President Kennedy.

Mass Media ignoring 'RFK Believed in Conspiracy' shows corrupt nature of America's Press



Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his sister Rory Kennedy told Charlie Rose that their father, the Attorney General of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy, believed there was a conspiracy behind the death of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. For the first time in almost 50 years, members of the slain president's family were on the record about their father's thoughts about the assassination.

The story made news, as it were, for a day or two -- it was on page 8 here in Detroit (try finding it using The Free Press or Detroit News web site search engines) -- and apart from several threads on DU, that's about it as coverage goes. The Charlie Rose interview was part of a program put together by the media and good people in Dallas to celebrate JFK's life.

What bothers me about the media coverage is the constant attack, not on the government's lousy investigation of the assassination and its attendant cover-up, but, rather, the attack on anyone who brings up the subject of conspiracy in the death of the president, even when it's children of attorney general who also was the brother of the slain president.

Check out this condescending piece of opinion from the Dallas Observer:

Not Even Charlie Rose Could Rein in RFK Jr. in Dallas Last Night. Also: Conspiracy Theories!

By Betsy Lewis Sat., Jan. 12 2013 at 11:01 AM

It got weird when he went into a historical lecture about his father's investigation into the JFK assassination. He was speaking about it as if he had been part of it, then cited a book called The Unspeakable by Jim Douglas (sic - actually "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" by James Douglass) as being the best book on the subject, then kept referencing things from the book. He was losing the audience, so he burst out, "My father believed that the Warren Report was a shoddy piece of craftsmanship," to the delighted applause of the mostly Baby Boomer audience.

Whenever Charlie Rose would ask about the family, RFK Jr. would evade the question until he heard either delighted Boomer applause or delighted Boomer laughter. One of his responses to a family question was an unrelated story about World War II. A lady behind me who must have recently Netflixed The Iron Lady kept saying, "Here here!" for the benefit of us unfortunate people around her.
Some of the strangest RFK Jr. outbursts with the biggest applause were:

"We're becoming a national security state!" (applause, "Here here!&quot

"Corporations want profits!" (applause, "Here here!&quot

"Corporations are great things, but we'd be nuts to let them run our government!" (applause, "Here here!&quot

"Nationalism in Africa! The end of colonialism!"

At this point, I don't think anyone knew what the hell he was talking about. It was something about the Kennedy family airlifting President Obama's father out of Kenya to begin a new life in America.

RFK Jr.: "Yes."

CONTINUED...

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/mixmaster/2013/01/charlie_rose_live_the_kennedy.php

Me, I don't believe any of that stuff was "out there." Why writer Betsy Lewis chooses to believe what the media tell her is true I'll guess lies in allegiance to a pay check.

Likewise for the lack of coverage given the story in the national media, where the same few corporations that swore up and down there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, both in 1990 and 2002, now want no part of "conspiracy talk" during the 50th anniversary observance. So far, as far as I'm aware, the Charlie Rose program has not aired.

What's more telling is what didn't get noted in the nation's corrupt mass media at all: The fact that Attorney General and later Senator Robert F. Kennedy also was assassinated. Some think that was a coincidence, because the mass media told them so. One thing's for certain, the questions still surrounding the deaths of two liberal icons doesn't get discussed at all today in our supposedly "free press."

[Ichingcarpenter]

104. My topic

My topic tonight is a more sober one of concern to publishers as well as editors.


I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.


This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.


The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the

Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.dangers which are cited to justify it.


That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.





http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Newspaper-Publishers-Association_19610427.aspx

[KoKo]

128. JFK knew it was a problem...and

he would roll over in his grave if he saw what the MSM has become so long after he and others warned.

[Ichingcarpenter]

74. Tip of the iceberg

Can we just remind ourselves that the #PanamaPapers are from just ONE law firm, in just ONE tax haven. Tip of the proverbial iceberg

Also, remember if this was leaked, just imagine what hasn't been leaked (yet).

Imagine what will NEVER be leaked.

[Ichingcarpenter]

75. Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak

Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive leak of their documents ought to be a wonderful thing.

Unfortunately the leaker has made the dreadful mistake of turning to the western corporate media to publicise the results. In consequence the first major story, published today by the Guardian, is all about Vladimir Putin and a cellist on the fiddle. As it happens I believe the story and have no doubt Putin is bent.

But why focus on Russia? Russian wealth is only a tiny minority of the money hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca. In fact, it soon becomes obvious that the selective reporting is going to stink.

The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The main search they have done is for names associated with breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires – the main customers. And the Guardian is quick to reassure that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”

What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include

Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)

among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished.

Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny “balancing” western country like Iceland. A superannuated UK peer or two will be sacrificed – someone already with dementia.

The corporate media – the Guardian and BBC in the UK – have exclusive access to the database which you and I cannot see. They are protecting themselves from even seeing western corporations’ sensitive information by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific searches such as UN sanctions busters. Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6.

What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all the corporate media and their companies, and all the editors and senior corporate media journalists? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and their companies?

What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they could trace?

more

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-media-gatekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/

[JEB]

103. The leaker should spread the information around and let the corrupt elites

expose each other. Your post kind of burst my euphoric bubble. I suppose that the Center for Public Integrity is more interested in maintaining the appearance of integrity than, you know, actual integrity. Still a good little peep show.

[suffragette]

76. "The firm is one of the world’s top five creators of shell companies"

Very curious about the other four.

[pantsonfire]

78. Scale of Leak Infographic

http://digg.com/2016/what-are-panama-papers-leak-shell-corporations

[Judi Lynn]

79. So deeply interesting. Hope it all will come out. Thank you, Octofish. n/t

[AxionExcel]

81. Perverted Plutocrats. Same as it ever was.

Don't make it worse by voting for them or their minions.

[rosesaylavee]

86. K&R AND Bookmarked

Thank you again Octafish! I wish I had a better link to the Lombardi drawings but otherwise, this is a treasure trove of information.

[kentuck]

88. Donald Trump...?

I would bet the Donald has a ton of money in foreign accounts.

[valerief]

93. So these are all the non-U.S. tax dodgers in just one (smallest) of the top four

money-hiding firms?

[Hotler]

95. Link to the original story.

https://panamapapers.icij.org/

This is a great website and organization.

[think]

102. Book marking. Lots of information to digest. Thank you /nt

[newblewtoo]

106. I think I have seen this movie before

and it always seems to have the same ending. Take a look at some of these links in a Google blast from the past:


https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=secret+swiss+bank+accounts+to+be+revealed+site:+democraticunderground.com


And with regard to Senator Sanders net worth, would that be without any secret accounts; if so, how do you prove he does not in fact have secret accounts if they are in fact secret?

I need to go answer the door, my tinfoil salesman has just arrived.

[Octafish]

111. Corporate McPravda is really something.

The story as it's playing in the mainstream media is "Lookit Putin the capitalist." Which is nice, as it shows how he's like the Don Barzini of Moscow.

Perhaps pressure from tinfoil hat wearing bloggers will pressure the likes of CIABCNNBCBSFakeNooseNutworks to budge and actually, you know, report the story. It's a far way from there to getting them to actually investigate the traitors, warmongers, banksters and crooks, but it's gotta start somewhere.

BTB: I doubt Bernie Sanders did any banking through Mossack Fonseca, but one never knows. Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, helped UBS continues its tradition of offshoring.

[starroute]

110. I'm particularly interested in the backstory

Jurgen Mossack was born in Germany in 1948. His father was a former SS-Waffen officer -- his name seems to have been Erhard Mossack -- who was apparently protected by the US after the war and moved his family to Panama in the early 1960s, where he offered to spy on Cuba for the CIA.

The younger Mossack founded his company in 1977 -- a highly significant year. When George H.W. Bush was CIA director in 1976, the same CIA guys who had been running the anti-Castro operations out of Miami fifteen years earlier started getting involved in Central American gun-running, drug trafficking, and money-laundering. Panama was an early center of their operations. But when Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, Bush was out and his CIA pals started moving their operations off the books.

Was Mossack's firm either a CIA proprietary or closely connected to these rogue CIA operations? That's what I'd really like to know.

Another significant date is 1986. That's when Iran-Contra was revealed and the whole off-the-books Latin American operation that had reached its climax during the Reagan administration blew sky high. And it's also when Mossack merged his firm with Fonseca's -- and, my guess is, moved into the more lucrative business of laundering money for the rich and powerful.

Another tantalizing bit is that the documents were leaked to a local paper in Bavaria, where Mossack was born. Coincidence? Significant? Or just somebody's idea of a joke?

There are so many strange aspects to this case, and it's important not to get distracted by the shiny objects.

[Baitball Blogger]

113. I was raised in Panama during that time period.

Amazing how two worlds can run parallel with each other, and it takes decades before you see the "iceberg" from the one that covets secrecy.

[Ichingcarpenter]

114. The NAZI SS CONNECTION....... interesting.

Well that's an eye opener and helps connects the dots.



Bush CIA ties to Noriega/ Iran Contra/ Panama Banks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016126690#post1[link:http://|

[certainot]

118. and in 1987 reagan repealed the fairness doctrine and a CIA connected company

bought up much larger ABC and started setting limbaugh up with the classic style PSYOPS now known as rw talk radio

simple mathematical fact: at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ FREE/month for pro republican wall st propaganda - for 30 years, rewriting reagan history and selling war

advertising dollars are icing. it's the perfect weapon, and the left continues to ignore it even tho 270 of those limbaugh stations and probbaly 30- 40% of all rw radio stations depend heavily on our 'liberal' universities including these 90!

ignoring it has now given us trump but the global warming denial makes ignoring it the biggest political mistake in history

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-libmedia.htm (a bit dated but amazing)

excerpts:

One of Capital City's early founders was William Casey, who would later become Ronald Reagan's Director of the CIA. At the time of Casey's nomination, the press expressed surprise that Reagan would hire a businessman whose last-known intelligence experience was limited to OSS operations in World War II. The fact is, however, that Casey had never left intelligence. Throughout the Cold War he kept a foot in both worlds, in private business as well as the CIA. A history of Casey's business dealings reveals that he was an aggressive player who saw nothing wrong with bending the law to further his own conservative agenda. When he became implicated as a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, many Washington insiders considered it a predictable continuation of a very shady career.

There are about 11,000 radio stations in the U.S., and Capital Cities/ABC is by far the largest player. Either through outright ownership or the sale of numerous services, they reach about half the radio stations in America, and this number is growing. With the Fairness Doctrine repealed, Capital Cities was able in 1988 to begin broadcasting one-sided editorials on conservatism. ABC Radio Network President Edward McLaughlin scoured the nation's radio stations for conservative talent, and his search led him to Sacramento, to a little known disc-jockey named Rush Limbaugh. Rush had attracted an audience with his vigorous and spirited defense of Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearings. McLaughlin brought him to New York City for a one-month "on-air" trial at Capital Cities/ABC's flagship radio station, WABC. For the next two years, ABC put him on the fast track, handling all his marketing, advertising and promotion. For legal purposes, and to protect ABC's image of supposed objectivity, Rush formed his own media company, Excellence in Broadcasting.

ironically, many NY OWS protestors probably went right through union station where WABC was broadcasting syracuse university endorsed RW talk radio bulllshit attacking OWS protestors and distorting the message and egging on the cops.

[Octafish]

168. Panama lawyers at center of offshore scandal make odd couple

From the AP, via Oz:

Panama lawyers at center of offshore scandal make odd couple

BY JUAN ZAMORANO AND JOSHUA GOODMAN
Associated Press

EXCERPT...

Fonseca's fiction, for which he's won Panama's top literary prize, comes straight from the shady, smoke-filled rooms of political bosses. In 2012, he published "Mister Politicus," a novel which he says is partly based on his life experience and which he describes on his website as "detailing the convoluted scheming of unscrupulous officials to gain power, and from there, satisfy their detestable ambitions."

Fonseca has some strong pro-democracy credentials in a country whose 1968-1989 military dictatorship spurred the growth of Panama's offshore banking industry. He played a critical role denouncing the 1993 slaying of a Roman Catholic priest, a move that led to the creation of a truth commission to investigate the dictatorship's crimes.

Far less is known about Jurgen Mossack, his partner, who has so far not spoken up.

Mossack's father, Erhard Mossack, was a member of the armed wing of Germany's Nazi party, according to U.S. Army intelligence files gathered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which has been coordinating the investigation into the law firm and its leaked documents.

The AP has been unable to verify the reports. An official at the firm said Jurgen Mossack was never sure which German military unit his father served in because the father never discussed the war except to say he saw combat on the Russian front. The official was not authorized to talk with the press and insisted on speaking anonymously.

Fonseca said he had no knowledge about any Nazi ties in his longtime partner's family. He said Erhard Mossack came to Panama in the 1960s, when Jurgen was 13, and worked as an executive at Lufthansa airlines.

CONTINUED...

http://www.sunherald.com/news/business/article69861537.html

Thank you for the heads-up, starroute. This is an amazing story. The axis of secret government and secret banking got squeaky all of a sudden. Perhaps the grease ran out somewhere. May it generate lots of attention upon those who most deserve it: the greedy warmongers and traitors they employ.

[bemildred]

115. Over 200,000 shell companies are involved in the Panama Papers leak — here's why that's a big deal

---

As the name suggests, shell companies are hollow. They do nothing but manage the money inside of them, with lawyers or accountants listed as management, the BBC reports. If authorities try to figure out whose money is really inside of the company, they end up just getting those lawyers and accountants.

This makes shell companies perfect for owning assets or opening bank accounts without leaving a trace of whose money it actually is.

"Even in places that do make shareholder information public, it is often still easy to make the owners anonymous," explains the investigative group Global Witness. "This is done by making the shareholders be further companies registered somewhere that keeps their owners secret, or by registering the company in someone else's name, even that of a total stranger. Astonishingly, it's entirely legal to do this in the majority of countries, and there's an entire profession dedicated to providing such 'nominee' services."

The watchdog nonprofit Global Financial Integrity points out that shell companies have been used in everything from Medicare fraud in the United States to corruption in Malaysia.

http://www.techinsider.io/why-shell-companies-are-a-huge-deal-2016-4

[Ichingcarpenter]

120. The Nazi, CIA And Nevada Connections... And Why It's Now Rothschild's Turn

What the story is about is the nebulous world of offshore tax evasion and tax havens, which based on data from the World Bank, IMF, UN, and central banks, hide between $21 and $32 trillion, where registered incorporation agents and law firms in small Caribbean countries (and not so small US states) make the laundering of money and the "disappearance" of the super wealthy, into untracable numbers hidden behind shell companies, possible.

So, in order to learn some more about the real star of this story, the Panamanian lawfirm of Mossack Fonseca, we went to Fusion which has compiled a fascinating story of the company's history, founders, and key milestone events in its life.


These include the Nazis, the CIA, Mexican drug lords, and of course, the U.S.

First, here is the Nazi and CIA connection:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-03/mossack-fonseca-nazi-cia-and-nevada-connections-and-why-its-now-rothschilds-turn


http://interactive.fusion.net/dirty-little-secrets/index.html

[Octafish]

164. Hunh! I was wondering how the USA became the biggest tax haven in the world!

Baron de Rothschild and Prescott Bush, share a moment and some official looking information, back in the day.

And, to top it off, there is one specific firm which is spearheading the conversion of the U.S. into Panama: Rothschild.

Rothschild, the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust company in Reno, Nev., a few blocks from the Harrah’s and Eldorado casinos. It is now moving the fortunes of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt.

* * *

For financial advisers, the current state of play is simply a good business opportunity. In a draft of his San Francisco presentation, Rothschild’s Penney wrote that the U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world.” The U.S., he added in language later excised from his prepared remarks, lacks “the resources to enforce foreign tax laws and has little appetite to do so.”

-- http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-03/mossack-fonseca-nazi-cia-and-nevada-connections-and-why-its-now-rothschilds-turn

Thank you, Ichingcarpenter. All the while my focus was on the tip of the iceberg.

[Ichingcarpenter]

165. Another odd connection and wedding bells

Was Chelsea attending the wedding of a Rothchild as the maid of honor in England in 2015... This is english side of the family. This one is James Rothchild and he's a generational blue blood Rothchild and a bankster



Then Earlier in 2012, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who is a third cousin known a Lady de Rothschild, who joined the Rothschild Family after attending the 1998 Bilderberg Group conference in Scotland. is hosting the event for Marjorie Margolies , formerly known as Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky Margolies, who is the Mother-in-Law of Chelsea Clinton. The Father-in-Law is convicted criminal Edward Mezvinsky.....Star attraction at the affair? Hillary

You might remember this Rothchild who supported Hillary in the 2008 election but when Hillary lost, she supported McCain because..... ""Obama was too elitist..''

Well talk about elite? Rothchild or Obama......
I'll go to the bank with the Rothchilds being the most elitist family or persons in the world.

But enough of this new family side of odd connections
for a really interesting read
try
Babylon's Banksters

by an Oxford Scholar

The onion has so many layers sometimes I feel
I've taken 23 red pills, Morpheus, not just one
and find a new matrix beneath the other one I discovered.........LOL

[Octafish]

166. Remember a man of Faith started that House.

For all the grief the connections in the present raise, from PNAC to the price of penny candy, the first Rothschild started his bank to serve the people of his community. He leveraged his resources so that his children could rescue the world from Napoleon.

I pray, and know at heart, many good people at the top of the money heap still work for the common good. Otherwise, it's time for Dandy Don to start singing that tune.

[saidsimplesimon]

124. Octafish thank you

I'm logging out to read and research. Recommended

[bobthedrummer]

126. K&R#199 Catherine Austin Fitts was revealing some of the structures from that Reagan/Bush/Clinton

era too-which we and others have posted about since becoming DUers, Sir.

Dillon, Read &Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits: Part I (Fitts 2006)
http://narconews.com/Issue40/article1644.html

[postulater]

134. All I have time to say right now is "Holy Schnikees!"

I'm anxious to see if this turns out better than Fitzmas.

[Gumboot]

140. Waiting for the bombshell...

... that blasts the #PanamaPapers story off the news sites altogether.

1) Terr-rist attack.

2) A dead celebrity.

3) Trump Trump Trump... ad nauseum.

The powers that be will want this whole thing buried ASAP. And I'd hazard a guess that some of the media moguls might just be involved in the story too, i.e. Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, to name just two.

Who else? The Bush family? The Clintons? The entire British ruling claaahhs...?

Great work by the journalists digging through all of this stuff. Keep on shining the lights, there's a lot more to discover.

[moondust]

143. Gluttony lives!!

Let them eat cake! eat cat food! starve!!!!

[Dont call me Shirley]

145. Its the race to become the world's first trillionaire.

What I see is a scheme by the have mores to steal from the haves.

[berni_mccoy]

147. Sirota: Hillary Pushed Panama Free Trade Agreements Amid Warnings this Would Happen

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511645512

[salin]

148. BBC live feed: 1000 Germans named - all who used German Banks.

http://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-35944255

[Octafish]

150. Panama government 'has zero tolerance for illicit financial activities'

Posted at 15:53

The President of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela, has said his government has "zero tolerance" for illicit financial activities.

Speaking at a news conference, Mr Varela said Panama was an open country and that he would co-operate vigorously with any judicial investigation in any country.

The president said that since he came to power 21 months ago, his government had taken steps to bolster the country's financial system and make it more transparent.

SOURCE: http://www.bbc.com/news/live/business-35944255

Thank you, salin! Great to read ya!

[salin]

152. Good to read you as well.

This may pull me out of lurking - on the days that I can spend time following.

I read earlier that Panama had been dragging its feet on the issue of cracking down on illegal tax sheltering issues. Guess when it is a powerful company in the country - it could be seen as good for the country to protect them. Suddenly when its a hell of a mess involving very powerful people and the world is watching - it must seem like a good idea to (at least pretend) to pull the cloak of coverage away.

[Octafish]

155. Foreign Policy asks: Will the ‘Panama Papers’ Bring Down Ukraine’s Chocolate King?

Freaking Ukraine must be freaking out.

Will the ‘Panama Papers’ Bring Down Ukraine’s Chocolate King?

BY REID STANDISH
Foreign Policy, APRIL 4, 2016

EXCERPT...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko came into office in 2014 vowing to fight his country’s endemic corruption and break the bonds between business interests and politics in Ukraine. That’s going to be a lot harder now that leaked documents have revealed a secret offshore company setup in Poroshenko’s name and not disclosed in his public income statements.

Ukrainian politicians wasted no time in using the revelations put forward against Poroshenko in the so-called “Panama Papers” — a trove of 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — to announce efforts to oust Poroshenko, who adamantly denies that he did anything illegal.

SNIP...

A self-made tycoon and one of Ukraine’s richest men, Poroshenko was elected after the Maidan protests that ousted former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Referred to as the “Chocolate King” in media reports, Poroshenko made his fortune with Roshen, a massive confectionary company. Beyond the candy business, he also owns a major TV channel, with his private wealth estimated by Bloomberg Business at $720 million. On the campaign trail, Poroshenko said that he would sell his company, but he instead later created a blind trust to oversee the management of the company.

Poroshenko was traveling to Japan on Monday, but a statement released on the president’s official Facebook page said he might be the first top Ukrainian official to ever declare his assets “in full compliance with the Ukrainian and international private law.”

CONTINUED...

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/04/will-the-panama-papers-bring-down-ukraines-chocolate-king-poroshenko/?wp_login_redirect=0

In Russia, Putin has such an iron grip on media their version of Bill OReallyskovich won't even get a single chance to flip out.

In USA, is Internet and McClatchy what make media so more difficult to muzzle. That and the First Amendment.

[malaise]

157. This just hit ABC International News

They said this is just the beginning and pointed out that Putin had not been named directly but the King of Saudi Arabia and others were named.

[starroute]

158. The Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Googling on Mossack Fonseca brought me to this:

http://archive.freedomandprosperity.org/update/upd02-15-01/upd02-15-01.shtml

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity just completed a successful 5 day visit to Panama. Panama is one of the 35 regimes on the original OECD list of low-tax countries. Indeed, Panama has the unfortunate distinction of being on all three of the international blacklists (OECD, FATF and FSB).

CFP was invited to participate in the First Forum on Competitiveness of Panama's Service Export Industry. The forum was very successful with more than 100 participants. During our trip, we met with senior government officials, top business leaders, local and international reporters, as well as average Panamanian citizens. Dan Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation and Mark Warner of Hughes Hubbard & Reed joined me with local speakers at the forum. Dan spoke on why tax competition is important and why the OECD project is misguided, Mark, a former OECD top trade lawyer, said the blacklist of tax havens was discriminatory under World Trade Organization rules, and I discussed the activities of the Center. Our remarks were received with much applause (see FT articles above and below).

The Center also meet with the Panamanian Business Association (sponsors of our trip) and the International Lawyers Association which is made up the 15 largest Panamanian firms including Morgan & Morgan, Sucre Arias & Reyes, Mossack Fonseca, Arosemena Noriega & Contreras, and Aleman Cordero Galindo & Lee.

And just who are these people? I'm glad you asked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Freedom_and_Prosperity

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CFP or CF&P) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for flat taxes, territorial taxation systems, and offshore tax havens. The organization and its subsidiary, Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (a tax-exempt organization), publish studies and conduct seminars analyzing the benefits of jurisdictional tax competition, financial privacy and fiscal sovereignty.

The stated objectives of the CFP are:

* Thwarting the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s attempts to create a cartel of high-tax nations – arguing that tax competition should be celebrated, not persecuted, and advocating that high tax regimes should not be able to shield themselves from globalisation.
* Protecting world commerce and open trade – it asserts that discriminatory financial protectionism against low-tax nations is a bad idea in principle and should be stopped. . . .

(More about them and founder Dan Mitchell at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/1/22/1057028/)

[Major Hogwash]

159. NPR was talking about this tonight.

Even they were shocked by the massive size of this leak.

[Octafish]

163. It takes a lot to get noticed by some of the brighter lights at NPR.

Mass Media ignoring 'RFK Believed in Conspiracy' shows corrupt nature of America's Press

Panama Papers: Here's What You Need To Know (So Far)

Over the past year, investigative journalists across the world have been sifting through 11.5 million internal files from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The files were leaked to the German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared the huge trove with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Stories about the data, which have been dubbed the Panama Papers, have been published by news organizations everywhere from Argentina to Sweden.

We know a lot about the trove of documents, but there's also a lot we don't know. (The ICIJ promises to release a full list of companies and the people linked to them in "early May.&quot

SNIP...

At Time, Rana Foroohar, who writes about the economy, says the revelations could lead to a "great crisis" for capitalism.

She writes:

"To me, this is one of the key issues at work in the U.S. presidential election. Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That's a large part of why both [Bernie] Sanders and [Donald] Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn't working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot. Globalization is supposed to be about the free movement of people, goods, and capital. But in fact, the system is set up to enable that mobility mainly for the rich (or for large corporations). The result is global tax evasion, the offshoring of labor, and an elite that flies 35,000 feet over the problems of nation states and the tax payers within them."

CONTINUED...

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/04/472985787/heres-what-you-need-to-know-so-far-about-panama-papers

May.

[Major Hogwash]

169. Wow, this could cause a world-wide revolution in banking reform.

Which would help put a stop to the international slave and drug trade.

[JEB]

161. For an example of how this fucks the people...

http://www.attn.com/stories/7075/one-number-explains-impact-panama-papers?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=internal


or
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027739007

[Octafish]

162. Panama papers: China censors online discussion

Panama papers: China censors online discussion

BBC, April 4, 2016

China appears to be censoring social media posts on the Panama Papers document leak which has named several members of China's elite, including President Xi Jinping's brother-in-law.

Hundreds of posts on networks such as Sina Weibo and Wechat on the topic have been deleted since Monday morning.

The leaked papers, from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, reveal how the rich have used tax havens.

They mention Deng Jiagui, who is married to Mr Xi's older sister.

An investigative report by Bloomberg News in 2012 suggested that Deng and his wife had hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate, share holdings and other assets.

There are legitimate ways of using tax havens and offshore companies, although these entities are often used to hide the true owners of assets or avoid paying tax on the money.

Censored terms

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the Panama Papers show that Mr Deng acquired two offshore companies in 2009, at a time when Mr Xi was rising in politics.
It is unclear what the companies were used for.

CONTINUED...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35957235

That's gotta be tough when calling one's self a corruption fighter, let alone tossing former top Party bosses in front of firing squads for less.