Hundreds of journalists around the world pored over the 11.5 million files leaked last year by an anonymous source that reveal how the rich and powerful in numerous countries use tax havens to hide their wealth. The files were leaked from one of the world’s most secretive offshore companies, Mossack Fonseca, a law firm based in Panama. They were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, who shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The collaboration, which did not include The New York Times, had at its center,  Frederik Obermaier, an investigative reporter at Süddeutsche Zeitung, which helped publish the Panama Papers, and Michael Hudson, senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Emails show Clinton State Department pushed Panama pact [amid] warnings it would help the rich hide money.  The Panama FTA pushed for by Obama and Clinton, watchdog groups said, effectively barred the United States from cracking down on questionable activities. Instead of requiring concessions of the Panamanian government on banking rules and regulations, combating tax haven abuse in Panama could violate the agreement. Should the U.S. embark on such an endeavor, it could be exposed to fines from international authorities.

The United States seems, in many ways, to be working at cross purposes. The U.S. Justice Department has gone after Swiss banks in a big way, gotten huge settlements with some of the biggest banks, and even some of the smaller Swiss banks, and put pressure, but there are many other examples of the United States either having policies which encourage money being moved around secretly or where we’re turning a blind eye. You know, there are states like Delaware and Nevada where there’s just as much secrecy, just as much privacy; if you want to get a company, if you want to have a shell company and not have your name publicly attached to it, you can do that.

India turns up in the context of dozens of very, very interesting cases, for example, where our colleague, Ritu Sarin, specialized on. And what she found that was amazing, it was tracks leading to prominent politicians.