The Tax Times: Reporter Central to the Panama Papers Leak Dies in a Malta Car Bomb Attack

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Reporter Central to the Panama Papers Leak Dies in a Malta Car Bomb Attack

We previously posted on December 1, 2016 Panama Papers - Global Effects Thus Far & Continuing Impact where we discussed that on April 4, 2016 we initially posted Huge Leak From the Panamanian Law Firm Mossack Fonseca! discussing that the offshore planning world was set on fire with the news that 11 million documents were leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Then Fast-forward 8 months later to December 1, 2016 and the investigation has produced an almost daily drumbeat of regulatory moves, follow-up stories and calls by politicians and activists for more action to combat offshore financial secrecy and ICIJ recently posted Panama Papers Have Had Historic Global Effects — and the Impacts Keep Coming where they cover the following repercussions:

At least 150 inquiries, audits or investigations into Panama Papers revelations have been announced in 79 countries around the world
An estimated $135 billion was wiped off the value of nearly 400 companies after the Panama Papers
Governments are investigating more than 6,500 taxpayers and companies, and have recouped at least $110 million so far in unpaid taxes or asset seizures
Nine Mossack Fonseca offices have shuttered around the world, and the law firm has been fined close to half a million dollars.

Now the Panama Papers has taken a Human Toll!

“My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists,” Matthew Caruana Galizia, who is also an investigative reporter, wrote in a moving and at times graphic Facebook post.

“But she was also targeted because she was the only person doing so. This is what happens when the institutions of the state are incapacitated: the last person left standing is often a journalist. Which makes her the first person left dead.”
Dutch forensic experts and a team from the FBI were due to arrive in Malta to help police in the EU’s smallest state investigate the killing of Caruana Galizia, who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption on the island.

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