A recent leak is pointing fingers to head of states, World leaders, politicians, celebrities in a 40 years of using offshore accounts. According to the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a non-profit group based in the US that originally published the leaked document, the documents listed 12 current and former world leaders, 128 politicians and public officials, billionaires, celebrities, sports stars and politicians.
From Upper left, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Petro Poroshenko, Clive Khulubuse Zuma
Down-left: Ayad Allawi, Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
The document has been tagged the Panama Papers. The data shows 38 years (1977 through 2015) and 214,000 of offshore entities.
Confirming the report, a co-founder of Mossack Fonseca said that the documents were obtained illegally by hacking and most of the documents are real, but the firm had not engaged or assisted in any wrongdoing.
A German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung said it had received about 2.6 terabytes of data, more than would fit in a 600 DVDs.
"To our knowledge this is the biggest leak that journalists have ever worked on,” journalist Bastian Obermayer said
The Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has said it will published names of individuals involved in the scandal in early May, citing emails, financial spreadsheets and passports among its evidence.
But some of the people named already are:
Petro Poroshenko: President of Ukraine
Ayad Allawi: Allawi Iraq’s Vice-President between 2014 and 2015, and the country’s interim prime minister from 2004 to 2005
Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud: King of Saudi Arabia
Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan: President of the United Arab Emirates, Emir of Abu Dhabi
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson: Prime Minister of Iceland
Sergey Roldugin: Close friend of Vladimir Putin
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani: Emir of Qatar 1995-2013
Li Xiaolin: Daughter of Li Peng, the former Premier of China (The current vice-president of state-owned power company China Datang Gorporation and former CEO of China Power International Development, she has been nicknamed China’s “Power Queen”
Rami Makhlouf: Cousin of Bashar Assad, the President of Syria
Hafez Makhlouf: Cousin of Bashar Assad, the President of Syria
Clive Khulubuse Zuma: Nephew of Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa
Maryam Nawaz Sharif Safdar: Daughter of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan
Hasan Nawaz Sharif: Son of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan
Hussain Nawaz Sharif: Son of Nawaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan
Alaa Mubarak: The eldest son of ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak