Any Americans in the Panama Papers?

Posted on April 6, 2016April 6, 2016 by Denise Simon

Headlines coming soon courtesy of media as noted by McClatchy

Mossack Fonseca worked with oil firms owned by Iranian state despite sanctions

Documents show law firm at centre of Panama Papers leak carried on doing business with companies after learning of their real owners

Guardian: The law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leak acted for an Iranian oil company that had been blacklisted by the US, the documents reveal.

Mossack Fonseca realised it was working for Petropars Ltd in 2010 only when another client accidentally fell foul of the US sanctions that had been imposed on the energy firm.

Petropars and the other client had been assigned the same PO box in the British Virgin Islands by Mossack Fonseca, and the address had been flagged by banks as linked to a blacklisted company.

The episode highlights the perils of giving the same address to thousands of shelf-companies – and the lack of rigour in Mossack Fonseca’s due diligence procedures.

This was acknowledged by the firm’s managing partner, Jürgen Mossack, who sent an angry email complaining about the lack of background checks, the documents show. “Everybody knows that there are United Nations sanctions against Iran, and we certainly want no business with regimes and individuals from such places! Not because of OFAC [the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the US Treasury department that deals with sanctions] but out of principle.”

Mossack Fonseca discovered it had been acting for the Iranian firm when the head of its Geneva office requested that a client be given a new mailing address in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

PO box 3136 in Road Town, Tortola, was shared by a multitude of other shelf companies on the law firm’s books, including Petropars.

Petropars had been designated by the US Treasury in June that year as an oil company ultimately owned by the Iranian state. With offices in Dubai and London, it played a key role in securing foreign investment for the South Pars natural gas field. The largest in the world, the field lies in the Persian gulf and is shared with Qatar.

Putting Petropars on the official OFAC sanctions list was intended to sap financial support for Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.

After a flurry of checks, Mossack Fonseca discovered it was acting for Petropars and two other companies in which it held stakes: Drilling Company International Limited and Venirogc Limited, a joint venture with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA, which would itself be blacklisted by the US the following year.

Three months after the blacklisting, Mossack Fonseca’s compliance team recommended resigning from Petropars and “all its associated companies”. By then, not only OFAC but the United Nations had issued sanctions against the Middle Eastern state.

Mossack Fonseca duly stood down and Petropars was recorded as inactive from May 2011, as were its two subsidiaries. But another Iranian company remained on the books.

Despite resolving to cut ties with Iran, Mossack Fonseca continued servicing an outfit called Petrocom. It shared the same London accountant as Petropars, and gave its address as Sepahbod Gharani Avenue in Tehran.

The relationship was managed through London, where a separately owned business holds the exclusive UK rights to market Mossack Fonseca’s services.

Mossack Fonseca in the BVI produced a certificate of good standing (often requested by banks or trading partners), stamped by the office of the Virgin Islands deputy governor on 14 September 2010; papers approving the appointment of a new chairman and managing director; and others for the creation of a joint venture.

Mossack Fonseca’s BVI office did carry out checks on the company. A request for the name of the ultimate beneficial owner of Petrocom elicited the following reply from Mossack Fonseca’s UK franchise: “I think we could assume that would be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unless I’m mistaken.”

While Iran’s then-president was unlikely to have actually held shares in these offshore entities, the comment makes it clear Mossack Fonseca’s UK office knew it was continuing to act for state-owned companies.

In June 2013, the US imposed sanctions on Petrocom’s parent OIIC, describing it as part of a network of 37 front companies set up to manage the Iranian leadership’s commercial holdings. OIIC was allegedly controlled by a holding company called Eiko, which stands for The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order.

“The purpose of this network is to generate and control massive, off-the-books investments, shielded from the view of the Iranian people and international regulators,” a US Treasury press release stated.

The most recent data, from December 2015, shows Petrocom remains on the firm’s books. A certificate of good standing was issued as recently as April 2015.

Mossack Fonseca said: “We have never knowingly allowed the use of our companies by individuals having any relationship with North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria and other countries or individuals sanctioned by the United States or European Union. We routinely resign from client engagements when ongoing due diligence and/or updates to sanctions lists reveals that a party to a company for which we provide services has been either convicted or listed by a sanctioning body.”

Emmanuel Cohen, who runs Mossack Fonseca’s UK franchise, said in a letter from his lawyer that he had been “in the forefront of undertaking due diligence checks over the years”, and that “he takes the obligations of reporting extremely seriously and files any suspicious activity” with the National Crime Agency. Regarding Petropars, Mossack Fonseca UK “was working through a professional client in the UK and was not responsible for any due diligence”. He added that the UK business was under no obligation to follow US sanctions.

Petrocom and Petropars did not respond to requests for comment.

In January 2016, the US removed Petropars and OIIC from its blacklist, following the nuclear deal with Iran.

Panama Papers reporting team: Juliette Garside, Luke Harding, Holly Watt, David Pegg, Helena Bengtsson, Simon Bowers, Owen Gibson and Nick Hopkins

1000 Foreign Nationals, 21 Arrested and a Fake School

Posted on April 5, 2016April 6, 2016 by Denise Simon

Lots of questions to be asked here but let’s start with: What was the tip that started this investigation? The next question is: Who investigated the school to give it a license or accreditation or did it have one? The last question: What happened to the 1000 foreign nationals?

Oh wait, here is an update…this was an FBI sting operation. The Feds actually created the school for the sting operation. My bad, I should have known.

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

21 Defendants Charged with Fraudulently Enabling Hundreds of Foreign Nationals to Remain in the United States Through Fake ‘Pay to Stay’ New Jersey College

“College” Created as Part of Homeland Security Investigations Sting Operation

Twenty-one brokers, recruiters and employers from across the United States who allegedly conspired with more than 1,000 foreign nationals to fraudulently maintain student visas and obtain foreign worker visas through a “pay to stay” New Jersey college were arrested this morning by federal agents, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman for the District of New Jersey announced.

The defendants (see chart below) were arrested in New Jersey and Washington by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and charged in 14 complaints with conspiracy to commit visa fraud, conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit and other offenses. All the defendants, with the exception of Yanjun Lin aka Aimee Lin, 25, of Flushing, New York, will appear today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven C. Mannion of the District of New Jersey in Newark, New Jersey, federal court. Lin will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen L. Strombom in the Western District of Washington federal court.

“‘Pay to Stay’ schemes not only damage our perception of legitimate student and foreign worker visa programs, they also pose a very real threat to national security,” U.S. Attorney Fishman said. “Today’s arrests, which were made possible by the great undercover work of our law enforcement partners, stopped 21 brokers, recruiters and employers across multiple states who recklessly exploited our immigration system for financial gain.”

“While the United States fully supports international education, we will vigorously investigate those who seek to exploit the U.S. immigration system,” said Director Sarah R. Saldaña for ICE. “As a result of this operation, HSI special agents have successfully identified and closed a gap in the student visa system and have arrested 21 individuals alleged to be amongst the system’s most egregious violators.”

“Individuals engaged in schemes that would undermine the remarkable educational opportunities afforded to international students represent an affront to those who play by the rules,” said Special Agent in Charge Terence S. Opiola for ICE Homeland Security Investigations. “These unscrupulous individuals undermine the integrity of the immigration system. Our special agents are committed to addressing, identifying fraud in order to better protect the system as a whole.”

According to the complaints unsealed today and statements made in court:

The defendants, many of whom operated recruiting companies for purported international students, were arrested for their involvement in an alleged scheme to enroll foreign nationals as students in the University of Northern New Jersey, a purported for-profit college located in Cranford, New Jersey (UNNJ). Unbeknownst to the defendants and the foreign nationals they conspired with, however, the UNNJ was created in September 2013 by HSI federal agents.

Through the UNNJ, undercover HSI agents investigated criminal activities associated with the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), including, but not limited to, student visa fraud and the harboring of aliens for profit. The UNNJ was not staffed with instructors or educators, had no curriculum and conducted no actual classes or education activities. The UNNJ operated solely as a storefront location with small offices staffed by federal agents posing as school administrators.

UNNJ represented itself as a school that, among other things, was authorized to issue a document known as a “Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant (F-1) Student Status – for Academic and Language Students,” commonly referred to as a Form I-20. This document, which certifies that a foreign national has been accepted to a school and would be a full-time student, typically enables legitimate foreign students to obtain an F-1 student visa. The F-1 student visa allows a foreign student to enter and/or remain in the United States while the student makes normal progress toward the completion of a full course of study in an SEVP accredited institution.

During the investigation, HSI special agents identified hundreds of foreign nationals, primarily from China and India, who previously entered the U.S. on F-1 non-immigrant student visas to attend other SEVP- accredited schools. Through various recruiting companies and business entities located in New Jersey, California, Illinois, New York and Virginia, the defendants then enabled approximately 1,076 of these foreign individuals – all of whom were willing participants in the scheme – to fraudulently maintain their nonimmigrant status in the U.S. on the false pretense that they continued to participate in full courses of study at the UNNJ.

Acting as recruiters, the defendants solicited the involvement of UNNJ administrators to participate in the scheme. During the course of their dealings with undercover agents, the defendants fully acknowledged that none of their foreign national clients would attend any actual courses, earn actual credits, or make academic progress toward an actual degree in a particular field of study. Rather, the defendants facilitated the enrollment of their foreign national clients in UNNJ to fraudulently maintain student visa status, in exchange for kickbacks, or “commissions.” The defendants also facilitated the creation of hundreds of false student records, including transcripts, attendance records and diplomas, which were purchased by their foreign national conspirators for the purpose of deceiving immigration authorities.

In other instances, the defendants used UNNJ to fraudulently obtain work authorization and work visas for hundreds of their clients. By obtaining this authorization, a number of defendants were able to outsource their foreign national clients as full-time employees with numerous U.S.-based corporations, also in exchange for commission fees. Other defendants devised phony IT projects that were purportedly to occur at the school. These defendants then created and caused to be created false contracts, employment verification letters, transcripts and other documents. The defendants then paid the undercover agents thousands of dollars to put the school’s letterhead on the sham documents, to sign the documents as school administrators and to otherwise go along with the scheme.

All of these bogus documents created the illusion that prospective foreign workers would be working at the school in some IT capacity or project. The defendants then used these fictitious documents fraudulently to obtain labor certifications issued by the U.S. Secretary of Labor and then ultimately to petition the U.S. government to obtain H1-B visas for non-immigrants. These fictitious documents were then submitted to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS). In the vast majority of circumstances, the foreign worker visas were not issued because USCIS was advised of the ongoing undercover operation.

In addition, starting today, HSI Newark is coordinating with the ICE Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU) and the SEVP to terminate the nonimmigrant student status for the foreign nationals associated with UNNJ, and if applicable, administratively arrest and place them into removal proceedings.

The chart below outlines the charges for each defendant. The charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and making a false statement each carry a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The charges of conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit and H1-B Visa fraud each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine.

The charges and allegations contained in the complaints are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the leadership of Director Saldaña; HSI Newark, under the leadership of Special Agent in Charge Opiola; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit, under the leadership of Unit Chief Robert Soria; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Fraud Detection and National Security Section, under the leadership of Associate Director Matthew Emrich; the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, under the leadership of Deputy Assistant Director Louis M. Farrell; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Vermont Service Center, Security Fraud Division, under the leadership of Associate Center Director Bradley J. Brouillette; U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of Fraud Prevention Programs, under the leadership of Director Josh Glazeroff; and the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force, under the leadership of Timothy Gallagher in Newark, for their contributions to the investigation.

He also thanked the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), under the leadership of Executive Director Michale S. McComis, and the New Jersey Office of Higher Education, under the leadership of Secretary of Higher Education Rochelle R. Hendricks, for their assistance. In addition, U.S. Attorney Fishman thanked the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Central District of California, Eastern District of New York, Eastern District of Virginia, Southern District of New York, Central District of Illinois, Peoria Division, and the Northern District of Georgia for their help.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis C. Carletta of the U.S. Attorney’s Office National Security Unit and Sarah Devlin of the Office’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Unit.

*Defendant Name*	*Age*	*Residence*	*Charges*
Jun Shen aka Jeanette Shen	32	Levittown, New York	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Jiaming Wang aka Celine Wang,	34	Los Angeles, California	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Philip Junlin Li	33	Los Angeles, California	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Zitong Wen aka Kate Wen	27	Rowland Heights, California	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Chaun Kit Yuen aka Alvin Yuen	24	Rowland Heights, California	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Ting Zue aka Tiffany Xue	28	Flushing, New York	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Yanjun Lin aka Aimee Lin	25	Flushing, New York	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Zheng Zhang aka Vicky Zhang	26	New York, New York	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Xue Yong Liu aka Jack Liu	29	New York, New York	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit

Minglu Li aka Vivian Lee	36	Los Angeles, California	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Jason Li aka Jason Liu aka Fen Lee	43	Flushing, New York	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Tajesh Kodali	44	Edison, New Jersey	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Jyoti Patel	34	Franklin Park, New Jersey	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Shahjadi M. Parvin aka Sarah Patel	54	Hackensack, New Jersey	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Narendra Singh Plaha	44	Hillsborough, New Jersey	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Sanjeev Sukhija	35	North Brunswick, New Jersey	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Harpreet Sachdeva	26	Somerset, New Jersey	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Avinash Shankar	35	Bloomington, Illinois	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Karthik Nimmala	32	Smyrna, Georgia	– Conspiracy to commit visa fraud – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Govardhan Dyavarashetty aka Vardhan Shetty	35	Avenel, New Jersey	– H1-B Visa fraud – False statements – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit
Syed Qasim Abbas aka Qasim Reza aka Nayyer	41	Brooklyn, New York	– H1-B Visa fraud – False statements – Conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit

Guccifer Appears in U.S. Court, Remember Hillary and Sid

Posted on April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Are we to make anything of the timing of this court appearance? We cant get our hopes up but this is for sure curious.

The grand jury indictment full text is here.

Romanian Hacker “Guccifer” Appears in U.S. Court

SecurityWeek: Lazar Lehel, the 44-year-old Romanian national accused of hacking into the online accounts of many public figures, has been extradited to the United States where he made his first court appearance last week.

Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice agreed to extradite Lehel, known online as Guccifer, to the United States for a period of 18 months. U.S. authorities said the man hacked into the email and social media accounts of two former presidents, a former cabinet member, a former presidential advisor, and a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between December 2012 and January 2014. The indictment does not name any of the victims and refers to them as “victim” 1 through 5.

The hacker has been accused of releasing private emails, personal photographs, and medical and financial information belonging to his victims.

Lehel has been charged in the United States with three counts of wire fraud, three counts of gaining unauthorized access to a protected computer, cyber stalking, aggravated identity theft, and obstruction of justice. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia said the man faces up to 20 years in prison, with a two-year mandatory minimum for the identity theft charges.

In an interview last year with a Romanian journalist, Lehel said that if he is extradited to the United States, he will “plead guilty, no problem.”

During the time he was active, Guccifer also hacked into the accounts of various actors, journalists and businessmen, but the charges filed by U.S. authorities appear to focus on the attacks targeting officials.

Lehel was arrested by Romanian authorities in January 2014 after hacking into the email accounts of Romanian politician Corina Cretu and George Maior, the head of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). He was sentenced by a Romanian court to seven years in prison for these attacks.

The hacker had been known by Romanian law enforcement as “Little Fume.” He had previously received a three-year suspended sentence for hacking into the accounts of many Romanian celebrities.

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2013, Daily News:

Online hacker ‘Guccifer’ breaks into email accounts of former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal

Guccifer got into the email account of Sidney Blumethal, a former aide to Bill Clinton and a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The attack comes just days after breaking into Colin Powell’s Facebook account.

He’s a real political hack, all right.

The online prankster known as “Guccifer” has crossed party lines and hacked the AOL account of a former Bill Clinton aide — just days after the cyber creep breached former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Facebook and email accounts.

“Guccifer” had seemed to be targeting the GOP before his latest round of online assaults — he’d spent recent weeks hacking into the emails of George W. Bush’s family and friends.

But last week “Guccifer” got into former Clinton aide Sidney Blumethal’s email account, according to thesmokinggun.com.

Blumenthal, 64, worked as an assistant and senior adviser to Clinton during the President’s second term.

He was also a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign and has stayed close with her since.

“Guccifer” accessed Blumenthal’s correspondence with Clinton dating back to 2005, including sensitive foreign policy and intelligence memos shared while Clinton was secretary of state in the Obama administration, according to thesmokinggun. The hacker sent screen grabs of the sensitive Clinton emails — stamped with his “Guccifer” logo — to the website, it reported.

His cyber assault on the high-profile Democrat came just a few days after “Guccifer” defaced Powell’s Facebook page.

“Guccifer” hacked in Monday morning and uploaded messages berating former President George W. Bush.

“You will burn in hell, Bush!” read one post.

“Kill the illuminati! Tomorrow’s world will be a world free of illuminati or will be no more!” he wrote in another.

Powell later apologized on his Facebook page for “all the stupid, obscene posts that are popping up.”

More Details on Panama Papers and Implications

Posted on April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Fusion: It’s being called the “Panama Papers” — a trove of 11.5 million leaked internal documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, showing how hundreds of thousands of people with money to hide used anonymous shell corporations across the world. Fusion’s investigative unit was one of the more than 100 media organizations that dove into the files — and found drug dealers, arms traders, human traffickers, fraudsters. We also found no shortage of politicians or their family members.

Here is a listing of current and former world leaders connected to the files. Check out Dirty Little Secrets, Fusion’s full investigation into the leak and the underworld it exposes.

For additional information on these names and more, read “The Power Players,” an interactive presentation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), from which much of this information is gleaned.

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.

SIGMUNDUR DAVID GUNNLAUGSSON

PM of Iceland

A radio personality who led the Progressive Party to victory after the financial crisis of 2008, Gunnlaugsson and his wealthy wife owned a British Virgin Islands shell company called Wintris Inc., that held nearly $4 million in bonds in Iceland’s three major banks. He failed to declare his ownership of Wintris on entering the Parliament in 2009. In March, a TV interviewer asked Gunnlaugsson if he had ever owned an offshore company. “Myself? No,” he said, adding: “Well, the Icelandic companies I have worked with had connections with offshore companies.” A spokesman told the ICIJ that Gunnlaugsson and his family had followed all Icelandic laws.

KING SALMAN BIN ABDULAZIZ BIN ABDULRAHMAN AL SAUD

King of Saudi Arabia

Through a series of British Virgin Islands shell companies, the Saudi king appears to have taken out several luxury mortgages for houses in London — at least $34 million worth — and held “a luxury yacht the length of a football field.” The king did not answer the ICIJ’s requests for comment.

PETRO POROSHENKO

President of Ukraine

Known as Ukraine’s billionaire “chocoloate king,” Poroshenko swept into office in 2014 vowing reforms that have not yet come. He became the sole shareholder of Prime Asset Partners Limited in 2014, as Russian troops invaded Eastern Ukraine. The following year, Poroshenko vowed to sell most of his assets; news reports said they ultimately ended up in “Prime Asset Capital.” His spokesman told the ICIJ said that “creation of the trust and related corporate structures had no relation to political and military events in Ukraine,” adding that his assets held by an independently managed fund — Prime Asset Capital.

RAMI AND HAFEZ MAKHLOUF

Cousins of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad

“For years, any foreign company seeking to do business in Syria had to be cleared by Rami, who controlled key economic sectors such as oil and telecommunications. Hafez, a general in charge of Syria’s intelligence and security apparatus, has been suspected of helping his older brother intimidate business rivals.” The cousins have been subjected to international financial sanctions and appear to have used multiple offshore accounts to siphon wealth from Syrian industry and avoid freezes on their assets. In early 2011, emails show employees at Mossack Fonseca discussing U.S. sanctions and allegations of bribery and corruption made against members of the Makhlouf family. By that June, Mossack had cut its ties with the Makhloufs.

KOJO ANNAN

Son of ex-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

Then only son of former U.N. head Kofi Annan courted controversy in 1998, when a firm of his won a big contract under the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food humanitarian program in Iraq. An inquiry eventually cleared father and son of any corruption in the deal. Internal Mossack Fonseca documents show Koji Annan has held several offshore shell companies, using one to purchase a half-million-dollar apartment in central London. A spokesman for Annan said his business was for “normal, legal purposes of managing family and business matters and has been fully disclosed in accordance with applicable laws.”

FAMILY OF NAWAZ SHARIF

PM of Pakistan

For years, Sharif, a longtime presence in Pakistani politics, has had to answer questions about his family’s “riches from a network of businesses that include steel, sugar and paper mills and extensive international property holdings,” ICIJ says. Mossacks’ documents show a series of offshore companies operated by Sharif’s children, Mariam, Hussein and Hasan, including one to hold “a UK property each for use by the family” and others that moved million in assets. Mossack Fonseca resigned from a company Hasan directed in 2007, calling him “a politically exposed person.” The Sharif family did not respond to the ICIJ’s requests for comment.

ARKADY AND BORIS ROTENBERG

Lifelong friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin

The billionaire brothers grew up with Putin and have benefited richly from his turns as Russia’s president and prime minister. The U.S. has sanctioned their wealth over alleged corruption, particularly allegations they profited over contracts from the 2014 Sochi Olympics. They ran at least seven British Virgin Islands shell companies “involved in everything from investing in a major pipeline construction company… to buying equipment for the construction of an Italian villa in Tuscany for Arkady’s son.”

SERGEY ROLDUGIN

Close persona friend of Putin

Widely known as one of the world’s better cellists, Roldugin has been close to Putin since the 1970s, when the future president worked in the Soviet KGB. Documents show Roldugin owned three shell companies, two of which were funded by a Russian organ that the U.S. government calls “Russia’s ‘personal bank for senior officials.’” Through those companies, Roldugin appears to hold significant shares of Kamaz, Russia’s largest truckmaker, and a major state media corporation.

IAN CAMERON

Father of David Cameron

The father of Great Britain’s current Conservative Prime Minister died in 2010, having amassed a fortune in smart investments. According to the documents, “Cameron helped create and develop Blairmore Holdings Inc. in Panama in 1982 and was involved in the investment fund until his 2010 death.” Blairmore was valued at $20 million in 1998 and was promoted to investors in brochures as “not liable to taxation on its income or capital gains.” The promotional literature added that Cameron’s fund “will not be subject to United Kingdom corporation tax or income tax on its profits.”

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Analysis: The security implications of the Panama Papers

IntelNews: Aside from their immediate shock value, the Panama Papers reveal the enormous extent of tax evasion on a worldwide scale. This unprecedented phenomenon is inextricably tied with broader trends in globalized finance-capitalism that directly threaten the very survival of the postwar welfare state. National intelligence agencies must begin to view offshore tax evasion as an existential threat to the security of organized government and need to augment their economic role as part of their overall mission to protect and secure law-abiding citizens.

THE BACKGROUND OF THE LEAK

The source of the Panama Papers leak —the largest in history— is apparently a single individual who contacted the widely respected German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung over a year ago. After receiving assurances that his or her anonymity would be safeguarded, the source proceeded to provide the paper with what eventually amounted to over 11.5 million files. They include company emails, banking transaction records, and files of clients that span the years 1977 to 2015. The source asked for no financial compensation or other form of reimbursement in return, saying only that he or she wanted to “make these crimes public”.

Faced with the largest data leak in recorded history, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters contacted the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which is the international arm of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity. With ICIJ acting as an umbrella group, the German reporters were eventually joined by 370 journalists representing 100 news outlets from 76 countries. On Sunday, following a year-long analysis of the data, the reporting partners began publishing revelations from the Panama Papers, and say they will continue to do so for several days to come.

THE ROLE OF MOSSACK FONSECA

The documents are from the internal records of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm headquartered in Panama City, Panama, with offices in 42 countries. The company is one of the world’s most prolific registrars and administrators of shell companies in offshore locations. It has created more than 300,000 shell companies throughout its history, most of them in offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, or Guernsey. Its clients are offered the ability to incorporate a generic-sounding company and headquarter it in an offshore tax haven. In exchange for an annual fee, Mossack Fonseca provides the company with a sham director and shareholders, thus concealing the true owner and actual beneficiary of the business.

The power of the leaked documents is that they reveal the actual owners of 214,000 offshore shell companies managed by Mossack Fonseca. The long list of names includes dozens of current and former heads of state, as well as hundreds of politicians, public figures and celebrities. Many of these individuals have failed to declare their earnings from their shell companies in their annual tax statements, which means they have not been paying taxes in their country of citizenship or residency. Thus, there are now thousands of Mossack Fonseca clients in over 100 countries who are preparing to face the legal consequences of tax evasion.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

Equally importantly, however, the leaked documents reveal that Mossack Fonseca’s clients appear to include at least 33 individuals and companies that are involved in organized crime or have close contacts with terrorist organizations. This sheds light on the increasingly disappearing line that once separated illicit activities such as tax avoidance and tax evasion, from money laundering, organized crime and terrorism. This phenomenon is assisted by unscrupulous companies like Mossack Fonseca, which act as anonymizing platforms for wealthy celebrities, criminals and terrorists alike.

The leak also shows the extent to which national governments have been unable to stem the tide of unfettered finance-capitalism, which today threatens the stability and cohesion of developed and developing economies alike. Moreover, the sheer scale of offshore capital funds, which, according to one expert, amount to as much as $32 trillion, threaten the economic security of nation states and must be viewed as an existential threat to the ability of states to fund public expenditures though taxation. The political arrangement that led to the creation of the postwar welfare state is today being directly threatened by the inability or unwillingness of organized states to monitor the largely unregulated flow of capital to offshore tax havens.

Today, entire economies, including much of southern Europe, the Balkans, as well as Latin America, are crumbling under the fiscal weight created by mass-scale tax evasion and organized crime. Organized criminals are now actively working closely with the banking sector, thus creating even more opportunities for money laundering and other financial illegality on an unprecedented scale. The Süddeutsche Zeitung revelations demonstrate that the line that separates legitimate economic activity from the rogue underbelly of global capitalism is exceedingly thin. It is high time that Western intelligence agencies viewed this worrying development as an asymmetrical threat against the security of law-abiding societies and began dealing with offshore tax havens with the same intensity that they have displayed against terrorist safe havens since 9/11.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis

Migrant Crisis Intersection of Horror, Greece

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Take a Country on the Brink. Now Add 10,000 Asylum Hearings a Week.

Cargo containers used as courthouses. Camps flooded with sewage. A government on the verge of collapse. Why the EU refugee deal is a disaster for Greece.

FP: ATHENS — The ferries bound from the eastern Aegean Sea to Athens reach the port of Piraeus at the E2 Terminal. Immediately confronting disembarking passengers is a five-story banner proclaiming that, two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Greeks won a naval battle in the nearby straits of Salamis. Just below the banner, a concrete pier stretching several hundred meters into those straits is now the site of a tent city.

The 1,600 inhabitants of this city share 45 toilets, shower at the homes of local volunteers, and are coached in elementary Greek as they wait in parallel lines — “Men on the left! Women and kids on the right!” — for pasta and tangerines. International photographers capture their every movement. Out of a green cargo container, volunteer nurses distribute tampons and baby formula while from the back of a van, volunteer medical specialists pick through hair for lice during their breaks from local hospitals. Plates and trays are washed in a trough connected to the Athenian sewage system. Recent fist fights between Syrians — who are, broadly speaking, from middle-class families — and Afghans — typically poor, rural men — have led to the division of the pier into twin encampments: The Afghans face the sea; the Syrians, Iraqis, and Kurds face Athens.

A Greek state that cannot even provide basic services to these refugees has now been placed, as part of a deal struck this month between the European Union and Turkey, at the center of an enormous task. In return for 6 billion euros and vague promises of visa-free travel for its citizens, Turkey will supposedly take back anyone currently attempting to enter Greece. In exchange, for every person turned away at the Greek border, a Syrian will supposedly be relocated from a Turkish camp to an EU country willing to take him or her in. The execution of this deal, however, hinges on Greece successfully processing, with breathtaking speed, each individual who arrives in the country — determining where he or she came from and whether he or she is eligible for asylum.

Eight vessels, 30 coach buses, and 4,000 new workers — including several dozen Frontex police officers and potentially 1,000 army and security staff — will eventually be dispatched from various EU countries to Greek borders to help enforce the agreement by determining their eligibility as “exchangeable” refugees. But, even prior to their arrival, the Greek government is still responsible for documenting some 10,000 incoming asylum-seekers per week.

The process began last week on Lesbos: Each morning, the roughly 1,000 refugees who continue to arrive everyday from Turkey were detained, photographed, given a numbered orange wristband, read their rights — “please be patient” — and bussed to a camp near the village of Moria. There, 60 judges operating out of makeshift courts — mostly cargo containers and tents — presided over appeals committees for any refugee who refused to leave Greece voluntarily. Arabic specialists parsed accents to determine whether Syrians have come from sufficiently dangerous swaths of their country to qualify for consideration of eventual asylum. “There are certain questions we can ask to make sure they’re telling the truth,” one of these specialists, a volunteer named Dionysia, told me in Piraeus, before departing for Lesbos. “‘What is the biggest street in Aleppo?’ ‘Which river runs through Homs?’” To the chagrin of many Greeks, Turkish observers are working within these deportation centers — at Lesbos and elsewhere — to determine if those refugees actually passed through Turkey on their way to
Greece. (Only the ones who did will be accepted back.) “How can you tell if someone without a passport has passed through Turkey?” I asked Dionysia. She shrugged.“How can you tell if someone without a passport has passed through Turkey?” I asked Dionysia. She shrugged.

Meanwhile, the government tasked with handling this mammoth organizational project teeters on the edge of collapse. The events of last summer demonstrated that a coalition of nationalists and former communists could find ways to cooperate during a fiscal crisis — namely, by invoking patriotism as a last plank against the technocrats of the EU. But virtually no common policy unites the ruling Independent Greeks-Syriza coalition when it comes to refugees. The leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks, Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, courts popularity by attacking the “imminent Islamization of Greece.” He refuses to distribute Greek army rations to refugees on the grounds that the Greek military is not a “catering service.” Syriza, a left-wing political party, takes a different stance. It came to power on a promise to dismantle all detention centers in Greece (a promise it has nevertheless broken); last week, members of its youth organization hung banners from the Acropolis calling for the opening of all national borders. The coalition nearly collapsed early this month when Syriza’s alternate immigration minister, Ioannis Mouzalas, called the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia by the name nearly every other country on earth uses — “Macedonia” — and was almost forced into resignation by Kammenos for his grievous affront to Hellenic identity. (Failos Kranidiotis, a prominent member of the opposition New Democracy party, was forced to resign when he said that Mouzalas should be hung publicly and that he himself would provide the rope.)

One of the few tactics both parties agree on is tying the treatment of refugees to the relieving of the national debt. Kammenos threatened to unleash a “wave of jihadis” on the rest of Europe if austerity measures continue unabated. But this strategy has proved mildly effective at best; Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has conceded that the Greek financial reforms will require some “flexibility” if Greece is to bear the brunt of Europe’s refugee crisis, but, so far, no changes to the bailout terms have been set.

The new arrivals, however, continue to come ashore. At the E2 Terminal, I met Muhammad from Iraq, who arrived in Piraeus on March 21. He speaks proficient English, worked 20 years as a tailor, and left his wife and 2-year-old daughter at their home in central Baghdad to seek a stable life in Germany, where he remains determined to go. In early March, Muhammad flew to Istanbul and then crossed to Lesbos in a dinghy with 120 others. Had he left Baghdad one week earlier, he would have likely crossed the Macedonian border and may have made it to Germany by now. Had he arrived several hours later than he did, he would have been turned back at Lesbos and very likely repatriated to Iraq under the terms of the new agreement, which makes no provisions for non-Syrians (though, in theory, looks at all asylum claims on their individual merits). As I got up to leave, Muhammad removed his sneaker and gestured to a horseshoe of scars curled around his left anklebone. Next, he pulled up his right pant leg, revealing a white cast that ended just below his knee. Both were the work of an Islamic State car bomb, he told me.

The current deal does nothing to address Muhammad — or the 53,000 other asylum-seekers like him who are now stuck in Piraeus, the former Olympic arenas in Attica, the squares of Thessaloniki and Kavala, the old Athens airport, the hills around Idomeni, and elsewhere in Greece. It’s likely they will be trapped in Greece indefinitely, victims of an EU that now feels it must overcompensate for months of doing nearly nothing to address the flow of refugees. Various entities and institutions allegedly trying to help people like Muhammad have found themselves at odds with one another and their goals incompatible: Last week, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, and the Norwegian Refugee Council all announced their withdrawal from Greece in protest of the prison-like conditions of its detention centers. Greece, for its part, blames the fenced-off camps on the EU, which habitually threatens Greece’s expulsion from the Schengen zone if refugees aren’t more carefully documented. (At least three of the Brussels bombers are known to have passed through Greece.)

Responsibility for caring for the refugees, meanwhile, continues to fall on private donations from Greeks, though it’s unclear how long a citizenry whose GDP has been devastated by an output drop of one-quarter can continue to do so. The Greek right has been quick to exploit the situation. On Greece’s Independence Day last week, a mysterious group calling itself the “Sacred Band” paraded through the main boulevard of Thessaloniki crying, “Greece stands for Orthodoxy!” The conservative Greek media, meanwhile, stoked fears of Greece’s Islamization by running footage of an Egyptian girl marching in the Athens parade wearing a headscarf. (The girl had absolutely no connection to refugees; she was born in Greece.)
The most damning critique of the EU-Turkey deal — that it breaks the Geneva Conventions by turning refugees back toward conflict zones — is partially offset by another: Rarely has the EU shown the organizational capacity necessary for its implementation. It has made previous commitments to move 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy to northern Europe by the end of 2016; only 937 have been relocated thus far. Nearly everywhere you go in Athens, you see how haphazard any potential efforts to implement the deal will be on the Greek end alone — and how, even if the deal does work, Greece will inevitably be put in the position of having to pick and choose who has a chance to move on to prosperous northern Europe and who doesn’t. Beyond the 53,000 refugees currently living in asylum camps, an estimated 500,000 “irregular migrants” have been living for years on Greek streets without any care or recognition by the country’s inefficient bureaucracy.

When Macedonia closed its border to northern Greece in early March, human smugglers in Athens reportedly threw a party in celebration of the fact that their routes were soon to become more dangerous and, thus, their rates more expensive. Aid workers I met insisted that the current EU-Turkey deal will only do more of the same. “The EU is incapable of realizing that an Afghan family that packed all its belongings into a suitcase, walked halfway across the Middle East, nearly drowned in the Aegean, and is now living in a tent will find a way of getting to Germany,” a Hellenic Red Cross worker told me. He produced a map of the Mediterranean for me on his iPhone. “All the Balkan borders with Greece are now closed.” He pointed toward the Black Sea. “Smugglers are now sneaking them to Bulgaria by boat. They have already begun buying up small hotels on the northwest Turkish coast from which they will launch their boats. When the weather gets better, that will be the next crisis point.”