Largest date leak in global history 2.6 Terabytes.

alfadriver wrote:

NOHOME wrote: So someone needs to explain to me how this works. Not the money hiding, that I get,also get the money laundering is obvious. But ultimately, capital is no good until you spend it. How do I go about spending the money without leaving a trace?

When it's not you that is spending the money. If a trust of some unknown source is paying for your luxury stuff, it's hard to figure out where that is coming from.

So you get Credit Card with the Trust name on it and the Trust owns your house and cars and Lear jet? You just use the stuff?

Not sure that would pass the IRS sniff test. But it would be an interesting interview "Yeah..."I just chill in this mansion" "No idea who owns it, or where the groceries come from, but so far nobody has kicked me out so I'm going to stay".

NOHOME wrote:

alfadriver wrote:

NOHOME wrote: So someone needs to explain to me how this works. Not the money hiding, that I get,also get the money laundering is obvious. But ultimately, capital is no good until you spend it. How do I go about spending the money without leaving a trace?

When it's not you that is spending the money. If a trust of some unknown source is paying for your luxury stuff, it's hard to figure out where that is coming from.

So you get Credit Card with the Trust name on it and the Trust owns your house and cars and Lear jet? You just use the stuff? Not sure that would pass the IRS sniff test. But it would be an interesting interview "Yeah..."I just chill in this mansion" "No idea who owns it, or where the groceries come from, but so far nobody has kicked me out so I'm going to stay".

I am going to assume that there are not a lot of US citizens on that list. The rules for reporting have changed in the last 10 years and most banks do not even want to have a single US client on there list as it opens them up to inquiries they would prefer to avoid.

Still amazed no one has taken credit yet>

In reply to NOHOME: Yes, that simple.

For US people, the hiding of income and property isn't going to work via the IRS. But having your assets IN a trust is quite legal.

For non US- having a card that is charged to some account in Panama makes it hard to track. It's also possible to charge to a card, and have some account pay it off, electronically, from some unknown place. Quite impossible in the US but different elsewhere.

wearymicrobe said: am going to assume that there are not a lot of US citizens on that list. The rules for reporting have changed in the last 10 years and most banks do not even want to have a single US client on there list as it opens them up to inquiries they would prefer to avoid.

Yeah, as a US citizen living abroad, I have to live with that. Canada rolled over like a puppy looking for love when the US took over their banks; they were perfectly happy to spend the tens of millions to alter the software to track US citizen held accounts. Some European banks just turfed the Americans out of the bank. It would be funny if Mossack Fonseca had decided to avoid the whole FACTA debacle by not dealing with US citizens.

Edit...But I REALLY wanted to see the Clintons on the list!

Big, big Chinese names on that list. Internal power struggles in China?

Or someone trying to create/foster same?

'A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money' -- Put anyone in charge of billion or even trillion dollar budgets and the opportunity for abuse becomes enormous.

Somewhat related - Bloomberg post a long read a few days ago about sustained hacker activity (surveillance, smear campaigns, influencing via social media bots) swaying elections in Latin America: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/

From the article: “I have always said that there are two types of politics—what people see and what really makes things happen. I worked in politics that are not seen.”

Without a doubt the same thing is happening here.

wearymicrobe wrote: I am going to assume that there are not a lot of US citizens on that list. The rules for reporting have changed in the last 10 years and most banks do not even want to have a single US client on there list as it opens them up to inquiries they would prefer to avoid. Still amazed no one has taken credit yet>

That is coming in the second parsing according to one of the editors. It is supposed to be not pretty either.

Happy Carmore wrote:

wearymicrobe wrote: I am going to assume that there are not a lot of US citizens on that list. The rules for reporting have changed in the last 10 years and most banks do not even want to have a single US client on there list as it opens them up to inquiries they would prefer to avoid. Still amazed no one has taken credit yet>

That is coming in the second parsing according to one of the editors. It is supposed to be not pretty either.

As much as I like one of the remaining candidates, I do wish this came out 6 months ago.

Assuming the ugly covers them, too.

But it's a pretty common problem across the world that the people with means have the ability to hide their money and income from the government that provides them with the ability to make that money in the first place. Which sucks.

alfadriver wrote:

Happy Carmore wrote:

wearymicrobe wrote: I am going to assume that there are not a lot of US citizens on that list. The rules for reporting have changed in the last 10 years and most banks do not even want to have a single US client on there list as it opens them up to inquiries they would prefer to avoid. Still amazed no one has taken credit yet>

That is coming in the second parsing according to one of the editors. It is supposed to be not pretty either.

As much as I like one of the remaining candidates, I do wish this came out 6 months ago. Assuming the ugly covers them, too. But it's a pretty common problem across the world that the people with means have the ability to hide their money and income from the government that provides them with the ability to make that money in the first place. Which sucks.

There are two candidates that if I was a betting man, I would put some money down on that they will get caught up in it. Multiple people they have done business with are on the already released list.

NOHOME hit it. All the middle eastern people on the list have donated or done business with the Clinton Foundation. I know the Brazil guy has done stuff with Trump.

Clinton has some big donors on that list who have been linked to paying stipends to people who have accused Trump of some interesting things. Again this is not going to be pretty, China is already blocking the news, Putin is saying its a western plant against him and his friends. Iceland has gone nuts as they should have.

The US is a pretty stable place and the tax laws are not terrible, plus we have lots of ways to keep money safe in real estate, for the ultra wealthy so I doubt you are going to find many people here on the list.

Iceland's PM is the first to go:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/05/europe/panama-papers-iceland-pm/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Now that's a government that's accountable to its people, when their leader gets caught profiting, perhaps not even intentionally, from the banks that crashed their economy, it's cause for mass protest and the leader resigns the very next day. In most countries, that would just be Tuesday

wearymicrobe wrote: Again this is not going to be pretty, China is already blocking the news, Putin is saying its a western plant against him and his friends. Iceland has gone nuts as they should have.

The Russian government actually knew this was coming somehow, the day before any of this was known they warned of "Western media attacks" or something like that.

In China, you can't even search for "Panama" anymore. The country's been erased from the web by the Great Firewall. I wonder if they'll wipe it off of the maps so that people won't have any reason to research this mysterious skinny country?

wearymicrobe wrote: The US [...] tax laws are not terrible,

Think I'll have to disagree on that one

Edit: Maybe you meant that US taxes are not high [for the ultra-wealthy]. Would totally agree with that.

GameboyRMH wrote: Iceland's PM is the first to go: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/05/europe/panama-papers-iceland-pm/index.html?eref=rss_latest Now that's a government that's accountable to its people, when their leader gets caught profiting, perhaps not even intentionally, from the banks that crashed their economy, it's cause for mass protest and the leader resigns the very next day. In most countries, that would just be Tuesday

Isn't there a kerfuffle in South Africa - pres using tax dollars to upgrade his ranch. I don't think it's occurred to him that it was a breach of ethics or at least he has no intention of going without a fight. Kinda fun to see some folks getting outed for abusing the system.

I would also say, there are very wealthy Americans working the system - they just have to be a bit more creative than in the past. Many take the stance of global economy and global citizenship. In my work I'm acquainted with some of these people and see glimpses of it in action.

GameboyRMH wrote: The US [...] tax laws are not terrible, Think I'll have to disagree on that one Edit: Maybe you meant that US taxes are not *high* [for the ultra-wealthy]. Would totally agree with that.

What I mean is its not a bad place for you to invest. You have the stability of the government behind you and at the end of the day most of the rule regarding investing make sense. Plus the rules do not change from dictator to dictator.

oldtin wrote: Isn't there a kerfuffle in South Africa - pres using tax dollars to upgrade his ranch. I don't think it's occurred to him that it was a breach of ethics or at least he has no intention of going without a fight. Kinda fun to see some folks getting outed for abusing the system.

There's some additional kerfuffle but the president was already in hot water, this is just icing on the cake.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/the-panama-papers-and-the-zuma-link-20160404

Obama has already taken some action...President Obama Just Took a Major Step in Response to the Panama Papers

Notice it took all this coming out for him to take action?

Weary, I disagree, I think this is going to get a significant number of Americans, especially politicians and companies. This wasn't about market stability, it was to avoid paying their fair share.

God knows it is going to kill the GOP in the general if anyone is paying attention.

The president or prime minister or whatever of Iceland is the first to go.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/world/europe/panama-papers-iceland.html?_r=0

Next, UEFA gets raided:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-tax-idUSKCN0X10C2

Still no word on the IOC...

Update: Major new stuff released today (or more like yesterday depending on your time zone), search by country to browse graphically:

https://offshoreleaks.icij.org

Found a couple of interesting local people already. This guy is at the center of about a third of the locally-implicated companies:

https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/11004060

One of the people in this family lives about a 1-minute drive from me:

https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/10196726