Panama Papers

What you need to know about the Guardian's claims ...

The Off Guardian: Full of shit, again/ or

Panama Papers Cause Guardian to Collapse into Self Parody

It looks like a real effort at diversion (Look over there! Rooskies! Putin! etc.) is being conducted here.

The papers seem legit, however. "Courage is contagious," says one Ed Snowden.

ETA: hmm. Spoken too soon?

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Apart from a few exception, it focusses on US/Soros enemies (is there a difference?). The investigation was funded by Open Society (Soros) and USAID (CIA/US State Department) and involves German ‘journalists’.

Better turn those bullshit detectors WAY up, boys and girls. Let's see where this goes.

More from Escobar ...

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THAT PANAMA RACKET UPDATE

A who’s who of wealthy/powerful players has been DIRECTLY targeted in the Panama Papers leak, from the – demented – King of Saudi Arabia to former Fiat/Ferrari stalwart Luca de Montezemolo, from Lionel Messi to (unnamed) Chinese Communist Party officials and members of President Xi Jinping’s family.

Quite juicy to also find Alaa Mubarak – the son of the deposed snake; the butcher of Fallujah, Ayad Allawi, former US occupation PM; Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif (a Saudi protégé, so he gets offshore advice as well); and butcher of Gaza Dov Weisglass, former advisor to PMs Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert (this one convicted of corruption)

Thus we find in the list not only Middle Eastern racketeers but also “respectable” Europeans – including David Cameron’s Dad.

A particular emphasis is on BRICS members – from those mysterious Chinese to a few Indian companies. As far as Brazil is concerned, there’s a healthy counterpoint; the presence of some notoriously corrupt players targeted by the Car Wash investigation such as Eduardo Cunha and Joaquim Barbosa.

Lula is NOT on the list – to the despair of the Exceptionalistan-supported regime changers in Brazil, many of them (media barons, bankers, businessmen) part of the previous HSBC leaks. Regime-changers-in-Chief, the Globo media empire, are not on the Panama leaks, although they profit from a certified offshore racket.

No Americans, either. Isn’t it lovely? Panama may be too obvious, too rakish, too crude. Exceptionalists prefer more refined racket holes, say Luxembourg. Or the rakish Caymans, for that matter.

So what’s left to spin? Well, the obvious: it’s Putin fault. Virtually every major Western corporate media headline blares that Putin has $2 billion offshore.

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The problem is he doesn’t. Putin is guilty by association because of his “close associates” Arkady and Boris Rotenberg’s ties to money laundering. Yet three “incriminating” emails happen not to “incriminate” them, or Putin.

And then there’s cellist Sergey Roldugin, a childhood friend of Putin’s. Here’s the spin by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which, crucially, is financed, among others, by notorious Russophobe George Soros:

“The records show Roldugin is a behind-the-scenes player in a clandestine network operated by Putin associates that has shuffled at least $2 billion through banks and offshore companies. In the documents, Roldugin is listed as the owner of offshore companies that have obtained payments from other companies worth tens of millions of dollars. … It’s possible Roldugin, who has publicly claimed not to be a businessman, is not the true beneficiary of these riches. Instead, the evidence in the files suggests Roldugin is acting as a front man for a network of Putin loyalists – and perhaps for Putin himself.”

What about, “the evidence in the files suggests Lionel Messi is acting as a front man for a network of Argentine football loyalists trying to evade the rape of Argentina by US hedge fund vultures”?

Pathetic.

ETA: "Goebbels had less-biased articles." Ouch. That's gotta hurt.

Moon of Alabama - Selective Leaks Of The #PanamaPapers Create Huge Blackmail Potential

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A real leak of data from a law firm in Panama would be very interesting. Many rich people and/or politicians hide money in shell companies that such firms in Panama provide. But the current heavily promoted "leak" of such data to several NATO supporting news organization and a US government financed "Non Government Organization" is just a lame attempt to smear some people the U.S. empire dislikes. It also creates a huge blackmail opportunity by NOT publishing certain data in return for this or that desired favor.

The details are important. Check this out.

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A year ago someone provided tons of data from Mossak Fonseca to a German newpaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The Munich daily is politically on the center right and staunchly pro NATO. It cooperates with the Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and some other news organization who are all known supporters of the establishment.

The Sueddeutsche claims that the "leaked" data is about some 214,000 shell companies and 14,000 Mossak Fonseca clients. There is surely a lot of hidden dirt in there. How many U.S. Senators are involved in such companies? Which European Union politicians? What are the big Wall Street banks and hedge funds hiding in Panama? Oh, sorry. The Sueddeutsche and its partners will not answer those questions.

Wait, there's more.

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Essentially the Sueddeutsche compiled a list of known criminals and people and organizations the U.S. dislikes and cross checked them with the "leaked" database. Selected hits were then further evaluated. The outcome are stories like the annual attempt to smear the Russian president Putin, who is not even mentioned in the Mossak Fonseca data, accusations against various people of the soccer association FIFA, much disliked by the U.S., and a few mentions of other miscreants of minor relevancy.

There is no story about any U.S. person, none at all, nor about any important NATO politician. The highest political "casualty" so far is the irrelevant Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson who, together with his wife, owned one of the shell companies. There is no evidence that the ownership or the money held by that company were illegal.

So where is the beef?

So, as I read it SO FAR, no Canadian or American has been named. Nada. Ziltch. Yet Western corporations and Western billionaires are the main customers of Mossack Fonseca. How's your bullshit detector doing, babblers?

from a critic of corruption in Russia (and no friend of its President) ...

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But why focus on Russia? Russian wealth is only a tiny minority of the money hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca. In fact, it soon becomes obvious that the selective reporting is going to stink.

The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The main search they have done is for names associated with breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires – the main customers. And the Guardian is quick to reassure that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”

What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include

Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)

Following things so far? Now this ...

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The corporate media – the Guardian and BBC in the UK – have exclusive access to the database which you and I cannot see. They are protecting themselves from even seeing western corporations’ sensitive information by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific searches such as UN sanctions busters. Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6.

What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all the corporate media and their companies, and all the editors and senior corporate media journalists? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and their companies?

What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they could trace?

That would be much more interesting. I know Russia and China are corrupt, you don’t have to tell me that. What if you look at things that we might, here in the west, be able to rise up and do something about?

And what if you corporate lapdogs let the people see the actual data?

BINGO.

See Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect the Western 1%

ikosmos wrote:

What I'd like to see is Canadian media identify Canadians

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/04/04/how-offshore-tax-havens-are...

voice of the damned wrote:

ikosmos:

Are you arguing against the validity of the leak itself, or against the spin that the media has been putting on the leak? Because the leak itself, if I'm reading the articles correctly, implicates some western allies as well, eg. Allawi, Sharif, and the current right-wing, neo-liberal Prime Minister of Iceland.

The whole thing is still in spin, isn't it?

I saw one article draw attention to a lizard that allows a part of its body to "fall off" so that predators get a snack but the lizard gets away. You did notice that no Americans were mentioned? Not one? Remarkable.

 And one commentator said the following

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"The Panama Papers are the exact kind of weaponized psyops posing as an 'activist leak' I wanted to see from hybrid warfare."

It's complicated, huh? So we're getting criticism on both counts. Clearly, the initial spin was "Putin done it" - despite nothing but guilt by association in his case. OTOH, the paper and the alleged investigative journalists are connected with the wishes of the US government.There are no independent searches. So we get what they choose to give us. That doesn't foster confidence.

I just don't know. What I do know is that I would like to see public access to the whole damn database, so that anyone can do searches. And some kind of undertaking that the milquetoast CRA in Canada actually does something about this.

OTOH, Telesur noted the following:

strong> wrote:

5 Top Key Points

The Panama Papers 1. The Panama Papers are a massive and historic leak of confidential documents that reveal how the rich and powerful from many countries around the globe use tax havens to hide their wealth. 2. About 140 high-level officials and millionaires, and about 113,000 shell companies are exposed in the documents, including at least 12 current or former heads of state, including Argentina's president, Mauricio Macri. 3. The documents show how a law firm based in Panama City, Mossack Fonseca, helped clients throughout four decades launder huge amounts of money and avoid taxes, while evading any legal action against them. 4. The leak involves about 11.5 million documents that would take one person 27 years to read. 5. The three biggest tax havens around the world are: Hong Kong, British Virgin Islands and Panama.

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
"http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/5-Top-Key-Points-About-the-Panama-Papers-4-About-Tax-Havens-20160404-0038.html".

ikosmos wrote:

"The CBC is one of only two Canadian organizations granted access to these leaked papers. They have not released the name of a single Canadian whose name appears in the papers, of whom there are several hundred."

He is Robin, brave Sir Robin, he chickened out, he ran away ....

CBC: "Did not! Never!"

So, then, there ARE Canadians on the list, but it's just that the CBC won't publish them?

A summary from the off Guardian: because the MSM makes us so lazy that all we really want is a headline.

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So – to sum up:

George Soros, David Rockefeller, the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, Goldman-Sachs et al. – who are all rabibly anti-corruption and always pay their taxes – all pooled their resources to fund the “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists” and tasked them with investigating shady international financial practices.

The result is this “leak”, a list of geo-political nobodies, has-beens, easy targets and dead ancestors. The tenuous and absurd connections to “enemies” of the West are exaggerated and plastered all over the headlines, whilst the names of allies and relatives are sidelined and barely mentioned – the majority of the information will “never be made public” according to the Guardian.

This is what “investigative journalism” has come to, printing billionaires’ enemy lists under the guise of “leaks”. Maybe this is a sign they feel cornered or threatened – because all they offer us here is a brief distraction and a small meal.

RT's flagship program Crosstalk will be covering this on Thursday (puts on a bib and grabs knife and fork).

voice of the damned wrote:

ikosmos wrote:

"The CBC is one of only two Canadian organizations granted access to these leaked papers. They have not released the name of a single Canadian whose name appears in the papers, of whom there are several hundred."

He is Robin, brave Sir Robin, he chickened out, he ran away ....

CBC: "Did not! Never!"

So, then, there ARE Canadians on the list, but it's just that the CBC won't publish them?

The Toronto Star is the other organization and they have released some names. Mostly nobodies. But that Putin in Russia and Bashar al Assad in Syria! I mean, really! I think Putin's brother's uncle's cousin! Isn't it obvious!? (See the off Guardian for a summary of the names so far...)

And look at that shiny thingy! It's SO shiny! Isn't it shiny? !

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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The Toronto Star is the other organization and they have released some names. Mostly nobodies.

So, then, there ARE somebodies on the list, but it's just that the CBC won't publish them?

Big Names Implicated: but the CBC isn't telling.

Have a look at the many angry remarks on the CBC website. Perhaps they will simply shut down discussion.

What's most amusing is how enraged Liberals and Conservatives are comparing the CBC to Soviet media. Bwa ha ha ha!

Also, if this is a Washington psyop, why target the PM of Ukraine, whom they only recently put into power?

Devogenes wrote:

The George Soros connection is certainly interesting, as is the anti-Russian spin.

Not just Soros. Soros, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford. A find list of billionaires that always pay their offshore taxes. harrumph.

"However, we have to wait to see what comes next and whether there are, as I believe there are expected to be, further leaks rolled out. "

Yeah. And blackmailing those who don't wish to be exposed takes time.

"The Snowden documents weren't all released at once, they were published in increments. Incidentally, Snowden seems to view the leaks as credible."

This is the only part so far that gives me pause.

"If this were merely a Washington take-down of Russia, why would it include the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Iceland?"

UK - the dead father of the PM who was already known as a tax evader. The Saudi Monarch is the de jure target of every enlightened liberal. When they're not selling weapons to the Kingdom on the side. As the off Guardian noted above ...

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The result is this “leak”, a list of geo-political nobodies, has-beens, easy targets and dead ancestors. The tenuous and absurd connections to “enemies” of the West are exaggerated and plastered all over the headlines, whilst the names of allies and relatives are sidelined and barely mentioned – the majority of the information will “never be made public” according to the Guardian.

"Also, if this is a Washington psyop, why target the PM of Ukraine, whom they only recently put into power?"

Maybe they want an American in charge. Or it's time to cut and run. Why kill only one bird when you can kill the whole flock with a tactical nuclear information weapon? Saadam Hussein in Iraq, Khaddafi in Libya, Mubarek in Egypt were tolerated until it was time to get rid of them. And then...

ikosmos wrote:

"The CBC is one of only two Canadian organizations granted access to these leaked papers. They have not released the name of a single Canadian whose name appears in the papers, of whom there are several hundred."

Here's two:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/senator-s-husband-put-1-7m-in-offshore-tax...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/panama-helene-mathieu-dubai-1.351...

The documentation provided to CBC News includes the names of some 450 Canadians who have set up these offshore accounts or holdings. We have already reported details concerning one such account-holder and expect to produce more such reports in the weeks and months to come.

At the same time, we are mindful of the reality that holding an offshore account is not evidence of wrongdoing and may not be controversial. So we are not simply reproducing the raw information we have received through the consortium. Our journalists are working through that information in a careful and methodical way to confirm the information received, identify appropriate stories, and complete them with appropriate context.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/why-cbc-isn-t-naming-all-450-canadians-in-...

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At the same time, we are mindful of the reality that holding an offshore account is not evidence of wrongdoing and may not be controversial. So we are not simply reproducing the raw information we have received through the consortium.

Oh please.  Just reproduce that raw information and let the mob decide.

I'm struggling to understand this "scandal".

This story dates from [size=20]April 2013[/size]:

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An in-depth investigation based on 2.5-million documents obtained by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with 38 news organizations, shows 450 Canadians have money hidden offshore.

Those Canadians are among the 130,000 individuals from more than 170 countries whose offshore investments were uncovered in “corporate files, emails, account ledgers, and other records” representing 260 gigabytes of data obtained by the ICIJ in a project they called “Secrecy for Sale.” [...]

The ICIJ, working with news groups such as the Guardian, the Washington Post and the CBC, revealed a long list of international benefactors of offshore tax havens, including the daughter of Ferdinand Marcos, the late dictator of the Philippines, the former wife of an ousted Thai prime minister and members of the family of the president of Azerbaijan.

That was [b]THREE YEARS AGO[/b]. We even had a [url=http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/cons-reduce-ability-canadian-r... thread[/url] on this three years ago, but no one cared much.

Why are the media trotting this out again now?

Took them 3 years to analyze the data?

Someone explain please.

Britain, both in terms of tax havens and members of the Conservative Party including PM David Cameron, are deeply implicated in the Panama Papers.

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A huge leak of millions of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has shone a light on secret offshore holdings from 128 politicians and public officials across the globe, including the UK.  ... 

How is Britain connected to these tax havens? 

Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth biggest provider of offshore services, has acted for more than 300,000 companies, of which more than a half are registered in British-administered tax havens, as well as in the UK itself, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism reported.  

Those tax havens include the British overseas territories of the Virgin Islands and the British crown dependencies Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. British territories are parts of the former British empire that have not chosen independence or have voted to remain British territories. 

Crown dependencies are independently administered jurisdictions which are not part of the UK or British Overseas Territories.

Who are the British officials involved?

Six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and "dozens" of donors to UK political parties are among those who've had offshore assets, according to the Guardian. 

The investigation confirms earlier reports that Cameron's late father, Ian Cameron, was a client of Mossack Fonseca. A stockbroker and multimillionaire, Ian Cameron helped create and develop Blairmore Holdings Inc. in Panama in 1982 and was involved in the investment fund until his 2010 death.

He left a fortune of £2.74 million ($3.89 million) in his will, from which David Cameron received the sum of £300,000 ($426,133). His dealings were revealed four years ago in a Guardian investigation. 

Other British officials implicated in the leak are Baroness and lifetime House of Lords peer Pamela Sharples; former Conservative Party donor and pollster Michael Ashcroft and former Tory MP Michael Mates. 

http://mashable.com/2016/04/04/panama-papers-british-politicians/#.u7REd...

Yes, the Ukranian leader has been much more directly implicated than Putin was.

Jeremy Corbyn on tax havens, and on the Cameron family http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/05/uk-could-impose-direct-rule-...

Frankly, if one is Prime Minister, benefiting from family tax avoidance is NOT a "private matter".

Given the close relationship between the US and Panama, I'd be VERY surprised if no USAmericans are involved.

lagatta wrote:

Given the close relationship between the US and Panama, I'd be VERY surprised if no USAmericans are involved

The opposite, actually. No American who wants to launder their money, avoid paying taxes, etc., is likely to use an institution that was recently put under US regulatory regime. So we won't find any Americans. Nada. Ziltch.

Unless they can find some way to shit on Bernie Sanders, of course.

I have Max Keiser to thank for that observation. RT. Question more.

voice of the damned wrote:

ikosmos:I think you're on firmer ground criticizing the way some media(eg. The Guardian) are spinning this, rather than trying to prove that the entire leak itself is a piece of CIA trickery.

I think I argued above that it was complicated. But the gatekeepers - like the Toronto Star and the CBC in Canada - control what we get to see, who is identified. Let me give you an example. The first people identified were those who were under US/UN sanctions, so we had Sudan, Iran, Russian, etc. by the "objective" UK Guardian. Their US overlords would have approved.

This is aside from the obvious idiocy of trying to smear the Russian President despite the fact that in the millions of pages of text, e mails, blah blah, he isn't mentioned once. Not once. Got that?

They sure know what side their bread is buttered on. The master's voice, and all that. What a chorus.

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I mean, as it stands, your argument amounts to saying that they're discrediting a bunch of people that they like, including one of their closest allies in a major strategic region, in order to sneak in a few documents designed to smear Putin, but which don't even mention Putin himself.

No, that's not the argument I was making. The AIM wasn't nailing Putin. That was just a bonus from the sycophantic MSM. In fact, it has backfired. People want the dirt on their own crooks (see Iceland) and, bless their hearts, aren't entirely hoodwinked by pornographic photos of the Russian President with the latest international Mata Hari or Cleopatra.

Here's a summary I liked (from upthread):

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So – to sum up:

George Soros, David Rockefeller, the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, Goldman-Sachs et al. – who are all rabibly anti-corruption and always pay their taxes – all pooled their resources to fund the “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists” and tasked them with investigating shady international financial practices.

The result is this “leak”, a list of geo-political nobodies, has-beens, easy targets and dead ancestors. The tenuous and absurd connections to “enemies” of the West are exaggerated and plastered all over the headlines, whilst the names of allies and relatives are sidelined and barely mentioned – the majority of the information will “never be made public” according to the Guardian.

This is what “investigative journalism” has come to, printing billionaires’ enemy lists under the guise of “leaks”. Maybe this is a sign they feel cornered or threatened – because all they offer us here is a brief distraction and a small meal.

I hope it goes sideways on them - I really do - but as someone upthread noted, we'll see ...

A fascianting story. I agree that ikosmos has a useful analysis on the Western media spin. The Guardian is especially egregious here, it seems, turning the entire operation into an anti-Putin "expose." Valubale points being made on the Western media analysis - though I'm not sure that the media's spin discredits the entire operation. 

Let's analyze the pro-Kremlin media spin too. 

I was expecting a lot of "boo-rah, they got that uber-nazi Poroshenko" stuff. And Poroshenko is clearly someone who's in hot water, deservedly so. 

And yet, the pro-Kremlin media repsonse has been, instead, to attack the entire project, even though it exposes quite a few people, exposes Poroshenko and David Cameron to critcism, etc. The reason? Apparently, defending Putin is more important than exposing others. Poroshenko's best ally in attacking this entire project is the pro-Kremlin press - strange bedfellows indeed.

A fascinating development.