Mr. Fonseca, aged 71, died in a hospital in the capital, where he was being treated, said Guillermina McDonald, without specifying the causes of death. “This is why he did not attend the trial” which opened on April 8, said this lawyer for the former company at the center of the scandal.
In 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICJI) published an investigation, the “Panama Papers”, based on the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Mossack Fonseca firm, named after the founding lawyers Jürgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca. This investigation revealed that heads of state and government, political leaders but also financial, sports and artistic figures hid properties, businesses, capital and profits from their tax services via the firm.
Among the figures mentioned in the “Panama Papers” are, among many others, the former heads of government of Iceland Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and of the United Kingdom David Cameron (current head of British diplomacy), former Argentine President Mauricio Macri, as well as soccer star Lionel Messi and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.
During the trial, which ended on April 19, the maximum sentence for money laundering – 12 years in prison – was requested against Ramón Fonseca and Jürgen Mossack. The court is expected to deliver its judgment within 30 days.
The scandal led to the closure of the Mossack Fonseca firm and the image of the small Central American country was seriously affected.
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