A Panamanian court on Friday acquitted 28 people accused of money laundering in connection with the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, the epicenter of the international tax evasion scandal known as the “Panama Papers.” Judge Baloisa Marquinez “acquitted 28 people accused of violating the economic order through money laundering” in the “Panama Papers” case, the court said in a statement.
Among the acquitted defendants are the firm’s founders, Ramon Fonseca, who died on May 9 in a Panamanian hospital at the age of 71, and Jürgen Mossack. During the trial, the prosecutor in charge of the fight against organized crime, Isis Soto, had requested the maximum sentence – 12 years in prison – against Jürgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca. However, the judge considered that the evidence collected on the law firm’s servers “did not respect the chain of custody” and did not allow to establish with “certainty (…) their authenticity and integrity.”
“Furthermore, the judge determined that the remaining evidence was not sufficient and conclusive to determine criminal liability” of the defendants, the statement said. Baloisa Marquinez also ordered “the lifting of the provisional measures” which weighed on the defendants, according to the same source.
The affair broke out in 2016 after the publication of an investigation, known as the “Panama Papers”, carried out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (Ciji). Drawing on the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Mossack Fonseca study, it revealed that heads of state and government, high-profile politicians and figures in finance, sports and the artistic world have hidden properties, businesses, capital and profits from the tax authorities.
To this end, they created opaque companies, through the Panamanian cabinet, to open bank accounts and create shell companies in several countries, in order to hide money, in some cases coming from illegal activities, according to the consortium’s investigation.
Among the figures mentioned are, among many others, Russian President Vladimir Putin, 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. The scandal led to the closure of the Mossack Fonseca firm and Panama’s image was seriously affected.
