Panama’s offshore scandal: Hungarians are also involved

Index.hu reports that 11.5 million documents about offshore companies was leaked on Sunday from a law firm in Panama. The documents were acquired by a German daily newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung. In processing them 370 journalists of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists from 76 countries were involved. Direkt36 participated in the work from Hungary. Among others, Vladimir Putin, Lionel Messi and dozens of Hungarian or Hungary-related companies and individuals are affected.

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The investigation lasted for a year during which the journalists interviewed experts, investigators, searched for information in company documents, databases and title deeds until the files became revealed. It were offshore bank accounts from 1977 to 2015 that were indicated in them, and they showed how illegal money moves through the global financial system. Furthermore, the files show that the banks, law firms and other participants of the offshore businesses do not care about their clients avoiding taxpaying, using them for money-laundering, or being simply criminals, even though they are supposed to investigate these things out by law.

The law firm, Mossack Fonseca has branch offices in several different countries around the world and has been one of the biggest companies providing offshore services. The documents leaked contain information about 215 thousand offshore companies. The Guardian wrote that, although Putin’s name is not included in the documents companies related to his family and friends have benefited from the offshore actions and gained about 2 billion dollars. The Kremlin declared that these are deceiving information that only serve the purpose to attack Putin and his friends. The files, however, also showed how Sergey Roldugin, cello player and one of Putin’s best friends, or Yuri Kovalcsuk of Rossiya Bank, made their wealth. Kovalcsuk, for instance, invested at least 1 billion dollars in a company called Sandalwood, through which many offshore businesses were financed, writes Index.

Furthermore, offshore activities of dozens of companies and individuals from Hungary or related to Hungary were revealed by the files as well. Direkt36 found the name of Zsolt Horváth, former member of Fidesz, who used to represent Kecskemét in the Parliament for 16 years.  Index says that Horváth’s wealth declaration does not report about big savings, but back in 2013 – during his political career – he became the director of the company Excelle Media International, on the Seychelles. This information, though, is not indicated in his declaration either. Later, when he left politics he became involved in another company on the Seychelles, the Mayer & Collins Trading Company. The leaking of such information was especially unpleasant for Fidesz, as earlier they have criticized people linked to offshore companies and promised to “end the world of the offshore-knights” (term introduced by the PM).