Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive leak of their documents ought to be a wonderful thing.
Unfortunately the leaker has made the dreadful mistake of turning to the western corporate media to publicise the results. In consequence the first major story, published today by the Guardian, is all about Vladimir Putin and a cellist on the fiddle. As it happens I believe the story and have no doubt Putin is bent.
But why focus on Russia? Russian wealth is only a tiny minority of the money hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca. In fact, it soon becomes obvious that the selective reporting is going to stink.
The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The main search they have done is for names associated with breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western corporations or western billionaires – the main customers. And the Guardian is quick to reassure that “much of the leaked material will remain private.”
What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but laughably named “International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”, which is funded and organised entirely by the USA’s Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include
Ford Foundation
Carnegie Endowment
Rockefeller Family Fund
W K Kellogg Foundation
Open Society Foundation (Soros)
among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished.
Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny “balancing” western country like Iceland. A superannuated UK peer or two will be sacrificed – someone already with dementia.
The corporate media – the Guardian and BBC in the UK – have exclusive access to the database which you and I cannot see. They are protecting themselves from even seeing western corporations’ sensitive information by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific searches such as UN sanctions busters. Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6.
What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all the corporate media and their companies, and all the editors and senior corporate media journalists? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and their companies?
What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they could trace?
That would be much more interesting. I know Russia and China are corrupt, you don’t have to tell me that. What if you look at things that we might, here in the west, be able to rise up and do something about?
And what if you corporate lapdogs let the people see the actual data?
UPDATE
Hundreds of thousands of people have read this post in the 11 hours since it was published – despite it being overnight here in the UK. There are 235,918 “impressions” on twitter (as twitter calls them) and over 3,700 people have “shared” so far on Facebook, bringing scores of new readers each.
I would remind you that this blog is produced free for the public good and you are welcome to republish or re-use this article or any other material freely anywhere without requesting further permission.
Thank you for writing this…may good spirits always be with you.
just come across your article by doing a search for panama papers images and the Hindustantimes.org which linked to it. Gutted if this is the case. will share.
What does surprises you? Did you think they are genuine foundations??? You only believe when your newspaper telling you? There you go this is the power of media, I am very sad
The Snowden leaks, as were others equally as massive before that, were opened to public access – or at least to those with the time and interest to master the search engines. The Consortium, while obviously better than nothing, is constrained at least by interest if nothing else. We’ll get to see (perhaps) and hear about what the consortium agrees to share. Wouldn’t want anybody getting a ‘scoop’ or anything.
As far as the users are concerned, loike ther ashley Madison ytypes, let them make a case for themselves rather than have the Consortium filtering the info. If they have a problem with the leak – the name of the firm involved is Mossack Fonseca, whch took money to keep this stuff out of the press – and the daylight.
The ICIJ is also funded by the CIA-controlled USAID.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/4/is_usaid_the_new_cia_agency
Sorry, no, the ICIJ is not funded by USAID.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-05/here-are-some-americans-panama-papers some Americans named – we need more
Dear Craig, Thank you for this discussion on The Panama Papers. It is very much appreciated. Putin has taken a strong public stand against vaccines and GMOs. And right now, the documentary VAXXED is also under serious attack by mysterious high-level corporate/political interests as well. Some of us view this as a carefully orchestrated American corporate MEDICAL political effort to silence or discredit Putin. This is a propaganda war to justify and save the American vaccine and GMO industries. Could you please comment on this aspect of the American/Putin conflict?
Publish the list of crooks in the US!
” I know Russia and China are corrupt”…all governments are corrupt…it all begins at local council level….the corpses own the politicians…
name one government with public transperancy…..
Well said ! There is an agenda to this incident.
it’s a pity that we understand everything but can not change anything
Clearly & simply expressed !
Ssoo many HIDDEN AGENDAS !
Ssoo much MANIPULATION !
FALSEHOOD becomes ACCEPTED TRUTH!
TRUTH becomes ACCEPTED FALSEHOOD !
Just too bad……
Very TRUE ,Vladimir : what U wrote!
Thank you for shedding light on certain aspects the media is obviously trying to cover up.
Media,Corporate bodies,Politicians,Free Masons,Power, “Black Money”, Influence & Affluence, Limelight,Underworld,People,Jetset Society,
Millionaires,Billionaires,Trillionaires……
THEY ALL MAKE UP SUCH A DISGUSTING, INTRICABLE, OVERESTIMATED or UNDERESTIMATED , PUZZLING , INTERTWINED MATRIX !!!
The truth will out – but not from the national media. They have too much to lose. Thank heaven for decent and intelligent journalists like Craig Murray. With the media controlled much as they are in dictatorships, the country governed by big corporations and the UK election process a joke, we have to depend on people like Murray. But it won’t be long before ‘they’ infiltrate the internet. Brave New World and 1984, weren’t wrong. They just got the timing wrong.
Too true. George Orwell was a prophet in forseeing this. He thought it might be a communist led totaliarian world but increality it us the so called “good guys” in the “democratic” West that has done it. Aldous Huxley was an earlier predicter of the future. His vision of people being put into specific categories, alpha, beta etc.are beginning to become real.
A much welcomed, inscisive perspective
The first question which came to my mind upon first hearing about the Panama Papers was,
Why and by whom was this ” leak ” allowed to happen?
It was published by the ICIJ WEbsite is https://www.icij.org/index.html
See also https://www.icij.org/blog/2016/04/offshore-links-more-140-politicians-and-officials-exposed
This is exponentially a greater quantity of data than Wikileaks was. It’s not something that one combs through and deciphers overnight, which is why the data has been shared so widely.
er, first – i see no names at in the “exposé” of your link, it only teases, while link 1 goes to the generic front page – and second – only 140 politicians from all over the world? don’t make me laugh!! based on the v. limited info we have in Brazil, we have half that many in our country alone…
Clearly & simply expressed !
Ssoo many HIDDEN AGENDAS !
Ssoo much MANIPULATION !
FALSEHOOD becomes ACCEPTED TRUTH!
TRUTH becomes ACCEPTED FALSEHOOD !
Just too bad……
Now we have to hack the ICIJ computers to leak the leaked information…. 😀
Westerners in these papers need to be released and known to the world or these media outlets need to be boycotted!
Thank you. This article was very enlightening because it enabled me to see the bias misrepresentation of the press. It is obvious that the press will not “bite the hand that feeds it”.
Anonymous, can you get us all the list?
The Guardian didn’t smash their Snowden files. Two of their laptops were destroyed by people who were probably MI6. The files were, and probably still are, are kept on various servers overseas, but the Guardian has understandably been reluctant to release the rest of the information on them after its editor was threatened with imprisonment for treason.
The Guardian article that you link to does not say what you say it does about the prioritising of the investigation to look at people associated with breaking UN sanctions. It states that, among the many types of people who have been identified (many hundreds so far) 22 of them are people who support regimes that are sanctioned. All the journalists involved in this have said, however, that the priority has was to look at people in power or public figures… which is exactly where the priority should have been, and is entirely reflected by the stories that have actually been printed (by no means limited to enemies of the west).
I tend to be quite suspicious of people who lie to make a point. It usually means that they are deliberately trying to manipulate for some kind of self-serving end…. possibly just the egotistical desire to be famous for something (which your update would appear to confirm).
Also the companies you list are not exactly top of the list of the world’s most evil empires and are only a handful among hundreds of foundations etc who fund the CPC. So I think it’s stretching it a bit to say that they are part of some kind of deliberate plot to protect the West.
And if they were trying to protect Western leaders they are currently doing a pretty crap job of it in the UK.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/08/offshore-trusts-tax-avoidance-explainer
Above The Guardian article concludes by saying there is one big jurisdiction who has not signed on OECD CRS starts from 2018 and says “Guess where, it’s Panama”. But the U.S. (being the largest tax haven) has not signed either. Why on earth The Guardian deliberately leaves the U.S. out from mentioning? o_O
*Panama has agreed to sign on CRS with the conditions. It is just that conditions are not accepted by OECD because it is “impossible”.
I read in somewhere the founder of The Guardian has a stake or has established offshore entities, but I lost the cite. Can anyone please find me the article / citation? Thanks!
Do you mean this?
“The Guardian newspaper, along with the BBC the main “owner” of the data in the UK, has made no bones about the fact that most of the data will not be published, and that there are “legitimate reasons” why people have offshore accounts and companies. As the Guardian’s owners operated from tax-dodging overseas accounts for years, they have to say that of course.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/the-empire-strikes-back/
Thank yu, Craig Murray. We have too few of your ilk in the world today but something is better than nothing.
Yes. We are still waiting to see more. It has been just partial exposure. Thanks.
This explains my feeling that something was not quite right with media’s selective exposure of the ‘usual suspects’ . I think the corporate media will bury the story as quickly as possible and like a dog returning to its vomit , go back to demonization of the benefit scroungers and the like . Safe ground and no blow back.
Not to feed some of the conspiracy theories here but I thought this Q&A by the director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Gerard Ryle, with Al-Jazeera, might really help explain the true motivations and the methods. I work with Gerard to be clear. Here is the piece: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2016/04/panama-papers-media-160409024928741.html
it’s also a good thing that the little guys in this are doing their best to expose whomever… i found this series of articles a good read, somewhat better than the complaining rant of our host: http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/ (might get banned for this opinion, however)
LS…
I wonder WHO is trying tot f#ck WHO in the end
So why Quater? Its an ally, no? Did not O visit Argentina? Seems more than one agenda.
if there is something in the panama papers that you would like to call to our attention, I wish you would mention it rather than criticising the media for what *they* chose. yes, you may not have the reach of cnn or nbc, but I don’t know you and I saw your blog post on facebook.
the guardian may have told me a dumb story about putin and a cellist, but that’s one story more than you’ve told me.
I’d be interested to know you response to Zakharova’s Facebook post, exerpt below:
“2. International law: When has Russia not respected international law? When it didn’t let the UN collapse which our western partners tried to make happen fifteen years ago through “revelatory scandals” that would discredit the organization? Or when Russia justifies not supporting ‘coalitions’ that bypass official international channels and procedures and thus have no legal status?”
She’s saying this happened in 2001.
https://www.facebook.com/maria.zakharova.167/posts/10209569202696601
The glaring absence of U.S. officials at Fonseca make me believe that law firm was cherry picked for propaganda purposes to smear the many political enemies of America. But if you look at other law firms and Google “Hillary, Jeb Bush, Oliver North, you will find a handful of links indicating our FBI knew these people had Panama Bank accounts as far back as 1996. See here; http://www.worldlawdirect.com/forum/showthread.php?p=399484#post399484
Those you read through the thread and links will find plenty of evidence including court records, legal exhibits, and an 11 page sworn report of a private investigator named Ed Reiken. Dig deeper and you will find well known American officials including a former Senator, governor, and even Hillary’s brother and former Canadian PM Mulroney had Panama IBCs and bank accounts. But that is not convenient for Uncle Sam so this news has been censored all over MSM.
Then when some govt. troll surely comes along and tells you or me to don a tin foil hat, send him here: http://s53.photobucket.com/user/RR1975/slideshow/BAGD/Honest%20DEA%20Agent. FYI… most American officials use two other facilitators for off-shore banking; Morgan & Mogan and The Carlyle Group.