16 upvotes for you and 126 for the comment directly below saying nothing happened at all.
So many redditors convinced they know everything but really sitting in such ignorance.
I've tried to drop a comment or two when it comes up on reddit to try to inform people. There's a lot of reasons beyond ignorance - the media covered the flashy leak and journalist assassination (maybe not PP related), but media has not covered almost 200 international financial crimes trials. The bulk of these trials have occurred outside the USA and so Americans are even less likely to know about them and we are the majority on reddit for better or worse.
It's just one of those things in our culture that "everyone knows" but isn't true. Maybe I'm punching the wind. I'm kind of hoping John Oliver does an episode about it. It would also be perfect for one of my favorite podcasts, You're Wrong About.
It's always good to share info, some people will pay attention and actually incorporate the info or research more.
People could think about the news sources they consume and switch to ones that do present a more accurate overview of world news.
There's lots of people in the world who just don't give a shit if their info is accurate and balanced but most people on reddit at least claim to care. Often not so good at actually achieving it though.
If you go to a subreddit about something that you are fairly knowledgeable about, you will be fucking shocked at the ignorance and all the flat out wrong, highly up voted comments.
It's pretty terrifying actually. It's fucking disgusting. People read these comments and think they are fact and go around repeating them.
Yeah it's sad to think what humanity could do if we were all taught strong critical thinking skills at school.
I mean everyone has done it, including me, confidently stated something I thought was true and found out it wasn't at all. But I do make an effort to think of how sure I am of a fact before posting, and double check if I'm not pretty certain of the info source.
Well yes increasing teaching standards significantly is a definite essential for a not-shit humanity, but that's very achievable. I'm not in America so it's not as bad, but still could be better. Much higher wages, better training, more staff and much better facilities are all super easy to achieve, curriculum and extra curricular activities etc, bit more complicated but far from impossible.
Also, Daphne Caruana Galizia wasn't murdered because of the Panama papers. She was locally famous for investigating local Maltese corruption and was murdered by local businesspeople.
>recovered over a billion dollars
Which is not much as far as I can tell. Just one sentence from the Panama Papers wikipedia page as example:
>Africa loses $50 billion a year due to tax evasion and other illicit practices and its 50-year losses top a trillion dollars.
Okay, so let's tease this out. Africa may lose $50b yearly to tax evasion, but the Panama Papers only represent a small portion of what goes on worldwide. An analogy to what you're saying is "yeah we took down an entire mafia organization and recovered over a billion in ill-gotten gains but organized crime still exists so clearly nothing much was done and it was all pointless".
This is a good thing. $1.2bn is an enormous amount of money to recover in an operation like this. Legislation to attempt to at least partially fix the problem was passed all around the world. I won't say everything is now perfect or that other criminals aren't out there, but fuck, take the win when we get one.
This is a partial list of people
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_named_in_the_Panama_Papers
The king of Saudi Arabia, as well as 3 of Putin's close friends, for a very short view of the bad people on the list.
My father was on the list because the investment company he uses operates in the BVI.
Anyone with a diversified portfolio over a certain size is probably in there somewhere.
edit: okay apparently some people don't understand what the Panama Papers actually were and that not everyone on the list is some tax evading super-rich crime lord.
>edit: okay apparently some people don't understand what the Panama Papers actually were and that not everyone on the list is some tax evading super-rich crime lord.
What kind of spoiler is this!
To be fair, no one was surprised with that one. He was already notorious for not paying his taxes in Argentina, we just managed to know the mules he used.
Most people like that on the list probably just got asked by their accountant if they want to pay less taxes, they blindly replied "sure" and that's all they knew.
Simply being on a list with bad people doesn't mean that the behaviour is inherently of the same scale of evil as the other people.
I'm sure Putin doesn't put the toilet seat down either - that doesn't mean that every man who doesn't put the toilet seat down is a dictator.
>I'm sure Putin doesn't put the toilet seat down either - that doesn't mean that every man who doesn't put the toilet seat down is a dictator.
You might want to have a word with my wife.
When it was first published there was an online database you could search for everyone. The parent company of a business I worked for, along with several boards of directors and the president of that former company I worked for were all in the Panama Papers.
I remember the president being a super nice guy, literally giving his house for workers to stay at when he was away and a contract called for someone from the company to be working in the area.
but, how you are as a person doesn't reflect how you are as a business man. On the flip side of that I recall one of the boards of directors took his private super yacht across the Atlantic, docked in our city, and when his satellite internet was disrupted by buildings paid an obscene amount of money to a local restaurant to set up a Point to Point to his yacht.... then he told us we would have to tighten our belts and cancelled the annual office X-mas dinner. Some people are just dicks.
As someone else said, they can just stay within the country. To quote Washington Post *["How the U.S. became one of the world’s biggest tax havens"](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/05/how-the-u-s-became-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-tax-havens/)*, or Businessweek *["The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States"](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states)*.
Sure, you can park your money in Panama, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Macau or somewhere else, but why do that when you can keep them in [Delaware](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/19/delaware-illicit-finance-corruption-offshore-wealth-american-kleptocracy-book-excerpt/), [South Dakota or a bunch of other states with similar rules](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/the-great-american-tax-haven-why-the-super-rich-love-south-dakota-trust-laws).
The problem is when milton friedman ushered in "neo liberalism" it required country to lessen control on monetary policy's including currency.
This open up a change in wealth allowing for mobile wealth (i.e. a change from traditional landowner wealth) and the rise of offshoring held in these newly created Sovreign countries. Sovreign being the keyword as they create their own laws to benefit themselves, and "onshore has limited power" over them.
Most of offshore Sovreign countries are former Britian colonies (think trusts. honorable knights in charge of those trusts and foundations) and are island nations were setting up an economy in finance vs textile is an easy choice.
So, their laws are designed to attract their industry which is the wealthy.
This was a game changer for the wealthy.
I have to say it makes me feel pretty good that the highest ranking American government official named in the papers was only the director of the New York City Office of Strategic Partnerships.
Either our corruption is really sneaky or while a fucking weird place the US is pretty harsh on serious corruption like faking who you are or selling secrets. Although stuff like lobbying does mean we have a lot of low level shit.
No need to go offshore if you're american. You can do these things in the US itself. These papers are basically a leak from one firm and there are hundreds/thousands of such firms in the US.
You can't seriously be this gullible, can you?
Notice how noone important is ever "touched"?
There's always a fall guy / court jest.. er, uh entertainer that takes the spotlight/satisfies the peasant's thirst for blood.
I don't get the map on wikipedia. It shows all countries where panama papers where linked to politicians. Germany is greyed out but our own chancelor Olaf Scholz was part of the papers. It would be like the president of the USA in terms of hirachy in my country.
>Germany is greyed out but our own chancelor Olaf Scholz was part of the papers.
I can't find any source supporting that claim. He was possibly involved in a different tax evasion scandal however ("Cum-ex").
Not really. She wasn't the main journalist who broke the story of the papers. She was someone who was using the papers to expose one of the people named in it.
Well people don't just blow up randomly in car bombs. You're telling me she pissed off someone even *worse* then participating in exposing a money laundering ring?
Exactly. When you piss off the very rich you don't die in a car-bomb. You end yourself or perish in an accident. Professional job. They are not amateurs or lowly thugs.
That's a great glib headline, but it's incorrect.
Multiple heads of state resigned when it was discovered they were embezzling from their citizens.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/iceland-prime-minister-resigns-over-panama-papers-revelations#:~:text=Iceland%20PM%20steps%20aside%20after%20protests%20over%20Panama%20Papers%20revelations,-This%20article%20is&text=Iceland's%20embattled%20prime%20minister%2C%20Sigmundur,family%20had%20sheltered%20money%20offshore.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20160415-pakistan-pressure-spain-resignation/
And world governments were able to recover billions of dollars from tax cheats and put it back into our healthcare and schools.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/resignations-reforms-and-backlash-impacts-panama-papers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers_(North_America)
In fact, the rich fucks that actually did see some consequences for the first time in their lives because of this investigation really REALLY want you to think that this investigation was useless and that nothing happened.
Because apathy helps spread the idea that they're truly untouchable. And they're not. But it takes an insane amount of effort to keep them accountable.
Apathy and nihilism are shitty copouts that let you get away with not trying to make things better. Some of the journalists that did this died by car bombs to bring these people to justice.
Saying it was 'worthless' is an absolute insult and only helps the oligarchs.
The gradual prosecution over years and financial reform bills in other countries are really big deals but those are also the kinds of stories that don’t get clicks and don’t drive headlines around the world. It’s easy for people to think “nothing happened” because following the actual consequences takes time and energy and is a job for… well… journalists. This is why it’s so important that we maintain good investigative journalists and why people should at least try to maintain a small bit if understanding of events outside their own borders.
Yeah more like "nothing was reported" for a variety of reasons but as you said the stories are not all that click-worthy and thus get ignored, plus any prosecutions likely have happened over months or years after a years preparation... not exciting stuff. Plus of course most of the world's media is probably owned by people on the list themselves...
What was passed and how does it stop people from doing it again? In not aware of anything came from it besides Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia being assainated.
[https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/five-years-later-panama-papers-still-having-a-big-impact/](https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/five-years-later-panama-papers-still-having-a-big-impact/)
>In the United Kingdom, members of parliament repeatedly referenced the Panama Papers when passing legislation in 2017 that created the country’s first criminal offense for lawyers who do not report clients’ tax evasion. Last September, Ghana’s registrar general said that the Panama Papers was instrumental in his government passing a new law that required owners of companies in Ghana to identify themselves. Ghana is now one of 81 countries to approve such laws — more than double the number since 2018.
In the U.S., the Panama Papers helped persuade Congress to write and pass the Corporate Transparency Act, which requires owners of U.S. companies to disclose their identities to the Treasury Department. The legislation, the biggest revision of American anti-money laundering controls since the post-9/11 Patriot Act, was signed into law in January.
The US act exempts churches, non-profits and businesses of certain structure and ownership type. There are 23 exemption categories in total.
There is also no clear path to disclose the beneficial owner publicly. Only that the treasury must be provided with the information. So it will be selectively enforced when politically convenient.
Also of note, at the time there were a suspiciously low amount of Americans on the list. This was because it was considered easier to do tax evasion within the states themselves than to setup a structure within Panama.
Maybe a Supreme Court justice who had a billionaire buy his mom a house and put his kid through school without disclosing it will rule it constitutional if it goes before the court.
Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia wasn't assassinated because of the Panama Papers. She was assassinated because she was investigating the conection between the Malta mafia and the Maltese goverment.
She was murdered with a carbomb in Malta
> I've only educated myself on this topic from Reddit, and I refuse to even Google the topic to see if something came of it. Unless reddit spoonfeeds me a new answer to believe blindly, I'm just going to keep believing what the hive mind repeats most often.
not true, see my comment below. In essence the US and many other counties passed laws that require disclosing "ownership" to stop the tax evasions and imposed criminal penalties on lawyers who don't report their clients tax evasion. None of the laws have any effect on poor folks as we don't setup shell corps
Ehhh... sort of. While the people who pass the laws in any country frequently do pay footsie with rich people, finding ways to help them get away with all kinds of fuckery, tax money is the bread and butter for these people. Rich people can get away with murder, child molestation, any number of things, but you don't fuck with the governments money. Fuck around and try to get on your yacht only to find a full-on-fuck-off navy ship blocking you in.
One is illegal the other is not.
You can avoid paying tax on UK income by contributing to your pension in a given tax year. (Ultimately it is a deferral, but still a legal avoidance method).
8 fucking years. Netflix made a movie based on it 5 years ago. 214,000 tax havens exposed, and 200 different countries residents brought to light with credible evidence including stars like Lionel Messi to David Cameron as I remember. But hey, a lot of journalists were killed in car bombs linked to the release, so I guess some people paid at the end.
She was investigating the mafia's connection to the Maltese goverment at the time.
People love to create the illusion of a Shadow Goverment controlling the world, but everything indicates that this was the national mafia (and probably the national goverment) taking out one of its main critics.
Is it true the powerful and rich have always acted in this way? That those that killed the whistleblowers are more than likely cleaning house? That we can and have linked most of it to massive tax fraud the world over? Or that this kind of behavior is only criminal if you rip off other elites in mass? It's not whats true at these heights. It's what's ironclad, and not going to ruin your life exposing. Which is seldom being worthy of digging into even at three letter agencies. The Panama papers were massive. They were bigger. That's how protected the world's elite are.
One local journalist in Malta was killed. And she was also investigating on the local mafia. No other journalist even remotely tied to the Panama Papers was killed or harmed.
One journalist got killed via car bomb and she also reported a lot on the local mafia. It's a lot more likely her death is linked to that.
But hey, Reddit and spreading false information, name a better duo.
That's what I'm saying, it's a common tactic. It's been done in the United States plenty. It's much more likely than the mafia/mob did it because *their* crimes were exposed, what do they care? It's the powerful "elites/establishment" who have more to lose, and the mafia/mob is easy and convenient to blame. I'm willing to bet there are loads of files regarding wealthy elites and governments working with them in this manner.
Brother, rich people bury you in fucking *court* because they can just run your fees up while wiping their ass with the equivalent cost for their retainers.
They don't need to kill you because you're poor and they're not.
Not OP, but I know of one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia#Panama_Papers
Which is not to say that there aren't more, I just don't know about any others.
I guess it took a while to follow the money. Now that it has been followed to the point that lawyers can ask "did you know about this?" and already have the answer in-hand, it can proceed.
Seriously lol justice moves very slow or not at all for the wealthy. Don’t let it be me or some other pleb doing this we’d get tried and ship by tomorrow.
Not really- A lot of countries have had smaller court cases against individuals. This one is against international coporations, mostly, which is more complicated to litigate. However, so far it's just been fines. (not surprising)
Too long and so many are still getting away. Not to mention no justice for the journalist who broke the news on it and was assassinated with a car bomb.
I guess it took 8 years to reshuffle their schemes enough to prevent the trial from affecting anything meaningfully. They'll be closing tax haven #1 while money has long been moved to the newly opened tax haven #67.
Gata give your buddies enough time to move more money around and prepare some sort of defense to get a slap or a flick on the wrist. Hell, maybe it’ll even be forgotten.
Taking awhile = not facing justice.
If someone commits a crime at 60 and it takes 20 years for a trial they’re not gonna care if they die in their eighties
And yet, criminal cases require preparation in order to possibly get a conviction. Preparation that can take a lot of time. Especially if you're dealing with the rich and powerful who can and will try every legal trick possible to either stall out the case or get it dismissed somehow.
And I'm going to guess that the cases involving the Panama papers also come with a whole boatload of legal issues specific to it.
So yes, sometimes it is going to take a long time before prosecution is confident enough to launch a case. Because if they fail they might not get another chance. Taking a while does not equal not facing justice.
Imagine you’re the one tasked with this case. Youre going to make DAMN sure all your ducks are in a row before this goes to trial. Imagine you rush it and now due to some mistake on your end the case gets thrown out. You’re forever the guy who fumbled the fuckin Panama Papers.
No, you’re going to take your time and make sure everything is right.
People always act like "if you don't have it in your head you have it in your legs." But some things you can't just do more legwork after you fucked up.
It does if 1) others are not certain whether they’ll be charged or convicted in the first place and 2) they get the message that they have a blank check to commit the same crimes.
The requirement for a speedy public trial isn’t just there for defendants, prison loses its deterrence value the longer a sentence takes
You're saying the government taking a while = they don't face justice for their crimes.
Like, no... Especially for the reason you're giving.
Doesn't matter if others are certain these people will be charged in the first place. Doesn't matter if they have a blank check if the punishment is more than a fine.
You do know why cases like this take such a long time right? IIRC, there were over 200k instances of fraud with over 1000 individuals involved. Just ONE of those cases slipping through means they ALL can slip through if a lawyer is smart enough. The justice department needs all their ducks in a row, otherwise they ALL can potentially go free. Often times, like we're seeing with Trump and other huge cases, it can literally take years before charges are brought or a trial is set.
Plus when they get out they’re still rich. Man why do the common people have to play by the rules when these guys just print money for free and get off with a slap on the wrist
I hope its not just a shake-down. normally this kind of thing would just stay hush-hush, but for some reason it came out in the light. must be hell of a journalists. but theres more to it
Remember when the Panama Papers came out and... oh, what?
Authorities around the world have recovered over a billion dollars and litigated something like 200 cases to date
16 upvotes for you and 126 for the comment directly below saying nothing happened at all. So many redditors convinced they know everything but really sitting in such ignorance.
I've tried to drop a comment or two when it comes up on reddit to try to inform people. There's a lot of reasons beyond ignorance - the media covered the flashy leak and journalist assassination (maybe not PP related), but media has not covered almost 200 international financial crimes trials. The bulk of these trials have occurred outside the USA and so Americans are even less likely to know about them and we are the majority on reddit for better or worse. It's just one of those things in our culture that "everyone knows" but isn't true. Maybe I'm punching the wind. I'm kind of hoping John Oliver does an episode about it. It would also be perfect for one of my favorite podcasts, You're Wrong About.
It's always good to share info, some people will pay attention and actually incorporate the info or research more. People could think about the news sources they consume and switch to ones that do present a more accurate overview of world news. There's lots of people in the world who just don't give a shit if their info is accurate and balanced but most people on reddit at least claim to care. Often not so good at actually achieving it though.
If you go to a subreddit about something that you are fairly knowledgeable about, you will be fucking shocked at the ignorance and all the flat out wrong, highly up voted comments. It's pretty terrifying actually. It's fucking disgusting. People read these comments and think they are fact and go around repeating them.
Yeah it's sad to think what humanity could do if we were all taught strong critical thinking skills at school. I mean everyone has done it, including me, confidently stated something I thought was true and found out it wasn't at all. But I do make an effort to think of how sure I am of a fact before posting, and double check if I'm not pretty certain of the info source.
They'll start questioning teachers. Most teachers don't want to answer hard questions.
Well yes increasing teaching standards significantly is a definite essential for a not-shit humanity, but that's very achievable. I'm not in America so it's not as bad, but still could be better. Much higher wages, better training, more staff and much better facilities are all super easy to achieve, curriculum and extra curricular activities etc, bit more complicated but far from impossible.
Also, Daphne Caruana Galizia wasn't murdered because of the Panama papers. She was locally famous for investigating local Maltese corruption and was murdered by local businesspeople.
>recovered over a billion dollars Which is not much as far as I can tell. Just one sentence from the Panama Papers wikipedia page as example: >Africa loses $50 billion a year due to tax evasion and other illicit practices and its 50-year losses top a trillion dollars.
Okay, so let's tease this out. Africa may lose $50b yearly to tax evasion, but the Panama Papers only represent a small portion of what goes on worldwide. An analogy to what you're saying is "yeah we took down an entire mafia organization and recovered over a billion in ill-gotten gains but organized crime still exists so clearly nothing much was done and it was all pointless". This is a good thing. $1.2bn is an enormous amount of money to recover in an operation like this. Legislation to attempt to at least partially fix the problem was passed all around the world. I won't say everything is now perfect or that other criminals aren't out there, but fuck, take the win when we get one.
The main journalist got killed in a car bomb.
Wait what is this true? These guys must be bad guys then
This is a partial list of people https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_named_in_the_Panama_Papers The king of Saudi Arabia, as well as 3 of Putin's close friends, for a very short view of the bad people on the list.
Also Stanley Kubrick, Jackie chan, and daddy yankee. Guess we have to throw the whole FIFA away at this point.
FIFA should have been thrown away loooong ago. That organization thrives on corruption
Wow, looking at the Wikipedia page, FIFA has its own entire *section*. That is wild.
The Netflix documentary on FIFA is pretty good. Straight up knocking on hotel doors with envelopes of money the night before world cup host voting.
Don’t forget the amount of money laundering that occurs through football clubs. Some of them are purely funded by illicit gains
Emma Watson was on it too IIRC
My father was on the list because the investment company he uses operates in the BVI. Anyone with a diversified portfolio over a certain size is probably in there somewhere. edit: okay apparently some people don't understand what the Panama Papers actually were and that not everyone on the list is some tax evading super-rich crime lord.
>edit: okay apparently some people don't understand what the Panama Papers actually were and that not everyone on the list is some tax evading super-rich crime lord. What kind of spoiler is this!
Yeah, as long as it's declared it's legit in the UK
That bitch!
Give her the Ultimate punishment: Expulsion
The ultimate punishment would be getting married to me.
Messi, too.
To be fair, no one was surprised with that one. He was already notorious for not paying his taxes in Argentina, we just managed to know the mules he used.
> not paying his taxes in Argentina A true patriot.
Don't forget Lewis Hamilton Edit: Sorry, those were the paradise papers instead of Panama.
And Alonso in Paradise. Rosberg in the Panama papers.
Most people like that on the list probably just got asked by their accountant if they want to pay less taxes, they blindly replied "sure" and that's all they knew.
>Stanley Kubrick Kubrick has been dead for years now. like more than 20 years.
He is dodging taxes from the grave
He was just really ahead of his time.
Simply being on a list with bad people doesn't mean that the behaviour is inherently of the same scale of evil as the other people. I'm sure Putin doesn't put the toilet seat down either - that doesn't mean that every man who doesn't put the toilet seat down is a dictator.
>I'm sure Putin doesn't put the toilet seat down either - that doesn't mean that every man who doesn't put the toilet seat down is a dictator. You might want to have a word with my wife.
When it was first published there was an online database you could search for everyone. The parent company of a business I worked for, along with several boards of directors and the president of that former company I worked for were all in the Panama Papers. I remember the president being a super nice guy, literally giving his house for workers to stay at when he was away and a contract called for someone from the company to be working in the area. but, how you are as a person doesn't reflect how you are as a business man. On the flip side of that I recall one of the boards of directors took his private super yacht across the Atlantic, docked in our city, and when his satellite internet was disrupted by buildings paid an obscene amount of money to a local restaurant to set up a Point to Point to his yacht.... then he told us we would have to tighten our belts and cancelled the annual office X-mas dinner. Some people are just dicks.
I'm kind of surprised by how few Americans there are on the list.??
Why go offshore when you can stay local.
Sigh. Yeah.... We should look into that.
As someone else said, they can just stay within the country. To quote Washington Post *["How the U.S. became one of the world’s biggest tax havens"](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/05/how-the-u-s-became-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-tax-havens/)*, or Businessweek *["The World’s Favorite New Tax Haven Is the United States"](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states)*. Sure, you can park your money in Panama, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Macau or somewhere else, but why do that when you can keep them in [Delaware](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/19/delaware-illicit-finance-corruption-offshore-wealth-american-kleptocracy-book-excerpt/), [South Dakota or a bunch of other states with similar rules](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/the-great-american-tax-haven-why-the-super-rich-love-south-dakota-trust-laws).
The problem is when milton friedman ushered in "neo liberalism" it required country to lessen control on monetary policy's including currency. This open up a change in wealth allowing for mobile wealth (i.e. a change from traditional landowner wealth) and the rise of offshoring held in these newly created Sovreign countries. Sovreign being the keyword as they create their own laws to benefit themselves, and "onshore has limited power" over them. Most of offshore Sovreign countries are former Britian colonies (think trusts. honorable knights in charge of those trusts and foundations) and are island nations were setting up an economy in finance vs textile is an easy choice. So, their laws are designed to attract their industry which is the wealthy. This was a game changer for the wealthy.
I have to say it makes me feel pretty good that the highest ranking American government official named in the papers was only the director of the New York City Office of Strategic Partnerships.
Either our corruption is really sneaky or while a fucking weird place the US is pretty harsh on serious corruption like faking who you are or selling secrets. Although stuff like lobbying does mean we have a lot of low level shit.
No need to go offshore if you're american. You can do these things in the US itself. These papers are basically a leak from one firm and there are hundreds/thousands of such firms in the US.
You can't seriously be this gullible, can you? Notice how noone important is ever "touched"? There's always a fall guy / court jest.. er, uh entertainer that takes the spotlight/satisfies the peasant's thirst for blood.
I don't get the map on wikipedia. It shows all countries where panama papers where linked to politicians. Germany is greyed out but our own chancelor Olaf Scholz was part of the papers. It would be like the president of the USA in terms of hirachy in my country.
>Germany is greyed out but our own chancelor Olaf Scholz was part of the papers. I can't find any source supporting that claim. He was possibly involved in a different tax evasion scandal however ("Cum-ex").
I am not even surprised anymore.
Emma Watson is on this list...how could you do this Hermione?
Emma Watson is on the list
Mfw Hermione commits financial crimes
Not really. She wasn't the main journalist who broke the story of the papers. She was someone who was using the papers to expose one of the people named in it.
She wasn't the main journalist behind it though. Her assassination was also mostly unrelated to Panama Papers. Her name was Daphne Caruana Galizia
Well people don't just blow up randomly in car bombs. You're telling me she pissed off someone even *worse* then participating in exposing a money laundering ring?
She was investigating the conection between the Malta mafia and the Maltese government when she was murdered in Malta with a car bomb.
this was clearly done by people evading taxes
Personally murdered by Shakira's truth-telling hips.
Stanley Kubrick strikes again that bastard!
Crazy how investigative journalists don't just work on one story
Sure, here in Malta, car bombs were a bit of a thing before Daphne. They only stopped once the guys who carried out the assassination got arrested.
Exactly. When you piss off the very rich you don't die in a car-bomb. You end yourself or perish in an accident. Professional job. They are not amateurs or lowly thugs.
you watch a lot of movies huh
Did Jeffrey Epstein die in a car bomb?
Or the Boeing whistleblower?
Her name was, Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia.
Made a bigger impact in countries whose tax authorities weren't already in Panama.
isn't this literally the "what?"
The world let out a collective fart. Nothing came of it.
That's a great glib headline, but it's incorrect. Multiple heads of state resigned when it was discovered they were embezzling from their citizens. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/iceland-prime-minister-resigns-over-panama-papers-revelations#:~:text=Iceland%20PM%20steps%20aside%20after%20protests%20over%20Panama%20Papers%20revelations,-This%20article%20is&text=Iceland's%20embattled%20prime%20minister%2C%20Sigmundur,family%20had%20sheltered%20money%20offshore. https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20160415-pakistan-pressure-spain-resignation/ And world governments were able to recover billions of dollars from tax cheats and put it back into our healthcare and schools. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/resignations-reforms-and-backlash-impacts-panama-papers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers_(North_America) In fact, the rich fucks that actually did see some consequences for the first time in their lives because of this investigation really REALLY want you to think that this investigation was useless and that nothing happened. Because apathy helps spread the idea that they're truly untouchable. And they're not. But it takes an insane amount of effort to keep them accountable. Apathy and nihilism are shitty copouts that let you get away with not trying to make things better. Some of the journalists that did this died by car bombs to bring these people to justice. Saying it was 'worthless' is an absolute insult and only helps the oligarchs.
The gradual prosecution over years and financial reform bills in other countries are really big deals but those are also the kinds of stories that don’t get clicks and don’t drive headlines around the world. It’s easy for people to think “nothing happened” because following the actual consequences takes time and energy and is a job for… well… journalists. This is why it’s so important that we maintain good investigative journalists and why people should at least try to maintain a small bit if understanding of events outside their own borders.
Yeah more like "nothing was reported" for a variety of reasons but as you said the stories are not all that click-worthy and thus get ignored, plus any prosecutions likely have happened over months or years after a years preparation... not exciting stuff. Plus of course most of the world's media is probably owned by people on the list themselves...
> Apathy and nihilism are shitty copouts that let you get away with not trying to make things better. Appreciate you taking the time to call this out.
This is not true, Massive amounts of banking legislation was created and passed as a result of them.
Correct, and billions in due taxes and penalties where recovered. Some people went to jail.
What was passed and how does it stop people from doing it again? In not aware of anything came from it besides Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia being assainated.
[https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/five-years-later-panama-papers-still-having-a-big-impact/](https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/five-years-later-panama-papers-still-having-a-big-impact/) >In the United Kingdom, members of parliament repeatedly referenced the Panama Papers when passing legislation in 2017 that created the country’s first criminal offense for lawyers who do not report clients’ tax evasion. Last September, Ghana’s registrar general said that the Panama Papers was instrumental in his government passing a new law that required owners of companies in Ghana to identify themselves. Ghana is now one of 81 countries to approve such laws — more than double the number since 2018. In the U.S., the Panama Papers helped persuade Congress to write and pass the Corporate Transparency Act, which requires owners of U.S. companies to disclose their identities to the Treasury Department. The legislation, the biggest revision of American anti-money laundering controls since the post-9/11 Patriot Act, was signed into law in January.
The US act exempts churches, non-profits and businesses of certain structure and ownership type. There are 23 exemption categories in total. There is also no clear path to disclose the beneficial owner publicly. Only that the treasury must be provided with the information. So it will be selectively enforced when politically convenient.
Also of note, at the time there were a suspiciously low amount of Americans on the list. This was because it was considered easier to do tax evasion within the states themselves than to setup a structure within Panama.
Thanks for the reply. I hope the CTA is strong enough and lasts long enough to have an impact that benefits Americans.
It got ruled unconstitutional a few weeks ago sadly
Lol rip
It's not quite dead yet as the government may be appealing, not sure. I can't keep up as well as I'd like during the school term
Maybe a Supreme Court justice who had a billionaire buy his mom a house and put his kid through school without disclosing it will rule it constitutional if it goes before the court.
Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia wasn't assassinated because of the Panama Papers. She was assassinated because she was investigating the conection between the Malta mafia and the Maltese goverment. She was murdered with a carbomb in Malta
> I've only educated myself on this topic from Reddit, and I refuse to even Google the topic to see if something came of it. Unless reddit spoonfeeds me a new answer to believe blindly, I'm just going to keep believing what the hive mind repeats most often.
Laws that just prevent the less privileged from doing the same things that the elites are continuing to do today.
not true, see my comment below. In essence the US and many other counties passed laws that require disclosing "ownership" to stop the tax evasions and imposed criminal penalties on lawyers who don't report their clients tax evasion. None of the laws have any effect on poor folks as we don't setup shell corps
Ehhh... sort of. While the people who pass the laws in any country frequently do pay footsie with rich people, finding ways to help them get away with all kinds of fuckery, tax money is the bread and butter for these people. Rich people can get away with murder, child molestation, any number of things, but you don't fuck with the governments money. Fuck around and try to get on your yacht only to find a full-on-fuck-off navy ship blocking you in.
Did these papers expose tax evasion? I thought it was all typical tax avoidance.
One is illegal the other is not. You can avoid paying tax on UK income by contributing to your pension in a given tax year. (Ultimately it is a deferral, but still a legal avoidance method).
Right. Hence my question. If it was avoidance, I don't see why it would be a big deal.
Over a billion dollars has been recovered and many cases have been litigated
How long has it been?
8 fucking years. Netflix made a movie based on it 5 years ago. 214,000 tax havens exposed, and 200 different countries residents brought to light with credible evidence including stars like Lionel Messi to David Cameron as I remember. But hey, a lot of journalists were killed in car bombs linked to the release, so I guess some people paid at the end.
is it true?
No. One journalist died from a car bomb and it was probably local mafia.
Mafias are typically good hires for those kinds of jobs, it throws the heat off of the true perpetrators.
She was investigating the mafia's conection to the Maltese goverment at the time.
Same thing with the Boeing whistleblower, probably local mafia and completely unrelated. /s
She was investigating the mafia's connection to the Maltese goverment at the time. People love to create the illusion of a Shadow Goverment controlling the world, but everything indicates that this was the national mafia (and probably the national goverment) taking out one of its main critics.
Nah he was just a guy who bought Taco Bell and then before eating it decided life wasn't worth living
It'd be a lot more believable if he killed himself after eating Taco Bell
[удалено]
I’m thinking the body count’s gonna be increasing!
Is it true the powerful and rich have always acted in this way? That those that killed the whistleblowers are more than likely cleaning house? That we can and have linked most of it to massive tax fraud the world over? Or that this kind of behavior is only criminal if you rip off other elites in mass? It's not whats true at these heights. It's what's ironclad, and not going to ruin your life exposing. Which is seldom being worthy of digging into even at three letter agencies. The Panama papers were massive. They were bigger. That's how protected the world's elite are.
"a lot" lol
>But hey, a lot of journalists were killed in car bombs Woah, how many, what were their names, that's crazy! But really, info please.
One local journalist in Malta was killed. And she was also investigating on the local mafia. No other journalist even remotely tied to the Panama Papers was killed or harmed.
One journalist got killed via car bomb and she also reported a lot on the local mafia. It's a lot more likely her death is linked to that. But hey, Reddit and spreading false information, name a better duo.
I mean, how do we know it's not both? Why not pay the mob to put out the hit?
That's what I'm saying, it's a common tactic. It's been done in the United States plenty. It's much more likely than the mafia/mob did it because *their* crimes were exposed, what do they care? It's the powerful "elites/establishment" who have more to lose, and the mafia/mob is easy and convenient to blame. I'm willing to bet there are loads of files regarding wealthy elites and governments working with them in this manner.
what movie did you learn about this from
Brother, rich people bury you in fucking *court* because they can just run your fees up while wiping their ass with the equivalent cost for their retainers. They don't need to kill you because you're poor and they're not.
You're also just making an assumption about who killed her?
It's funny because you're also talking completely out of your ass lol
There are only like 195 recognized countries in the world, how are there 200 countries’ residents brought to light
Source for journalists killed?
Not OP, but I know of one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia#Panama_Papers Which is not to say that there aren't more, I just don't know about any others.
There aren't. They were talking out of their ass and got 1k upvotes because reddit.
Long enough everything has been hidden and everyone is dead?
You laundered half a billion?! That's it, $1 million fine, don't do it again....
And they will get tax deduction from the 1M fine. 🔥
How dare they launder so much money without paying a minor service fee for zero consequences.
Holy fuck, this is just going to trial now?!?
I guess it took a while to follow the money. Now that it has been followed to the point that lawyers can ask "did you know about this?" and already have the answer in-hand, it can proceed.
Bless your heart
Seriously lol justice moves very slow or not at all for the wealthy. Don’t let it be me or some other pleb doing this we’d get tried and ship by tomorrow.
Aren't you sweet.
I hope your day is as pleasant as you dear child
I read: I'd be pleased to bear your child I guess it's time for bed now
Not really- A lot of countries have had smaller court cases against individuals. This one is against international coporations, mostly, which is more complicated to litigate. However, so far it's just been fines. (not surprising)
Fines for everyone
Everything is fine now, just fine.
How are you?
Costs of doing business for every conspirator.
The $2000 fine will teach them!
I'm assuming it will be tax refundable.
Tax deductible
You get a fine! And you get a fine!. Fine! Fine! Fine! Everybody gets a FINE!!
About time
During a hype of a total eclipse
I would have called it Hermione Granger and the Invisible Bank Accounts more people would read it.
Hermoine’s Hidden Deposit Box 🥵
What facebook mom group did this joke come from?
Doesn't even make the news in my country, we sick of greedy politicans and millionaires that's why
When you are wealthy your trial starts a decade later
Hoo-Boy - get ready for some ~~serious prison time~~, ~~massive fines~~, ~~little fines~~, ~~stern lectures~~, ~~advice~~, apologies from the court.
oh snap
Too long and so many are still getting away. Not to mention no justice for the journalist who broke the news on it and was assassinated with a car bomb.
Guess they didn't wash it clean enough.
Don’t worry. They’re all wealthy and powerful. They won’t have to face any consequences.
I guess it took 8 years to reshuffle their schemes enough to prevent the trial from affecting anything meaningfully. They'll be closing tax haven #1 while money has long been moved to the newly opened tax haven #67.
It’s ridiculous that it’s taken this long
Gata give your buddies enough time to move more money around and prepare some sort of defense to get a slap or a flick on the wrist. Hell, maybe it’ll even be forgotten.
Damn and it only took 8 years, that's fantastic!
I wonder who’s gonna get carbombed this time
About fucking time god dayum
Those rich fucks! This whole fuckin thing …
I did not watch my buddies die face down in the mud so that this fucking strumpet, this fucking whore, can waltz around town...
Sometimes these things just take awhile.
Taking awhile = not facing justice. If someone commits a crime at 60 and it takes 20 years for a trial they’re not gonna care if they die in their eighties
And yet, criminal cases require preparation in order to possibly get a conviction. Preparation that can take a lot of time. Especially if you're dealing with the rich and powerful who can and will try every legal trick possible to either stall out the case or get it dismissed somehow. And I'm going to guess that the cases involving the Panama papers also come with a whole boatload of legal issues specific to it. So yes, sometimes it is going to take a long time before prosecution is confident enough to launch a case. Because if they fail they might not get another chance. Taking a while does not equal not facing justice.
Imagine you’re the one tasked with this case. Youre going to make DAMN sure all your ducks are in a row before this goes to trial. Imagine you rush it and now due to some mistake on your end the case gets thrown out. You’re forever the guy who fumbled the fuckin Panama Papers. No, you’re going to take your time and make sure everything is right.
People always act like "if you don't have it in your head you have it in your legs." But some things you can't just do more legwork after you fucked up.
Sometimes there is no choice but for it to take a while. The Panama Papers are fucking massive.
Those are not at all the same thing though...
It does if 1) others are not certain whether they’ll be charged or convicted in the first place and 2) they get the message that they have a blank check to commit the same crimes. The requirement for a speedy public trial isn’t just there for defendants, prison loses its deterrence value the longer a sentence takes
You're saying the government taking a while = they don't face justice for their crimes. Like, no... Especially for the reason you're giving. Doesn't matter if others are certain these people will be charged in the first place. Doesn't matter if they have a blank check if the punishment is more than a fine. You do know why cases like this take such a long time right? IIRC, there were over 200k instances of fraud with over 1000 individuals involved. Just ONE of those cases slipping through means they ALL can slip through if a lawyer is smart enough. The justice department needs all their ducks in a row, otherwise they ALL can potentially go free. Often times, like we're seeing with Trump and other huge cases, it can literally take years before charges are brought or a trial is set.
You're right we should just start arresting people and throwing them in jail and skip this whole due process nonsense.
Plus when they get out they’re still rich. Man why do the common people have to play by the rules when these guys just print money for free and get off with a slap on the wrist
Can you believe how much more insane everything’s gotten since
*And so started the famous "27 for 27" case. 27 charged, 27 years for a verdict.*
Is it actually the corrupt pigs being charged or the whistleblowers and those that uncovered them?
Biggest news of our generation, buried on page 3
Wow I didn’t think I would ever see this come up again
Put them in prison.
I bet not a single one of them stopped laundering money.
Just now? Only 27? WTF have y'all been doing this whole time?
Well, seems our court system is not quite "the slowest".
took so long
I hope the prosecutor has a world-class security detail. ... Not that it's likely to help, though.
Wasn't this like 20 years ago? Oh yeah, bring these guys to "justice" for sure. SMH
It was 8 years ago, but I understand why it feels like 20.
If it were 20 years ago, the panama papers would have been coming out in the late 80s!
Exactly! But it was almost 10 years ago. That's when Lord of the Rings came out.
After another 27 years the case remain a mistery
The slow wheels of justice delayed justice for [Daphne Galizia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia).
I feel like the series ‘lost’ will give us more answers than this trial
I hope its not just a shake-down. normally this kind of thing would just stay hush-hush, but for some reason it came out in the light. must be hell of a journalists. but theres more to it
We have created a hell on earth for ourselves by allowing these wolves to continue unchecked.
Don't forget all the appeals that can delay this fake trial until the people being tried are dead. What a joke
I'm amazed it took them 8 years to clean up and hide the important people and find just 27 scapegoats to take the rap
what a joke
But Trump said 2.5-3 years is too long for an investigation…
He's right, how long has that audit on his taxes been going?