Panama Papers

The Panama Papers, a 2.6 terabyte chunk of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, went public today amidst a flurry of new accusations. While small bits of the leak have been fed to the masses since early April, this is the first time the entire database is available to be searched by anyone.

Since various news outlets originally got ahold of the information, many prominent figures have been caught up in the fraud, money laundering, and theft. For example, the media has identified the Presidents of Argentina, the UAE, Iceland, Ukraine, and the King of Saudi Arabia as being associated with these crimes.

But now that the database can be investigated by anyone, the first Americans named in the documents are beginning to make their way from out of the cracks and into the spotlight. Benjamin Wey, a Wall Street financier, was charged in September with securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering  for using family members to help him acquire ownership of stock in companies through “reverse merger” transactions between Chinese and U.S. shell companies. Another American, Igor Olenicoff, was listed as a shareholder of Olen Oil Management Limited in the leaked data. He failed to declare more than $200 million stashed offshore in shell companies setup by Mossack Fonseca.

While there’s not yet anything as scandalous as Prime Ministers and Presidents from the U.S. in the papers yet, there’s still plenty of time for things to be uncovered.

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By Christian Kramer