The defendants due to go on trial in a Panamanian criminal court include Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca Mora, the founders of the now-defunct law firm at the center of the scandal, France24 reports.
Twenty-seven people are set to go on trial on Monday for money laundering in connection with the "Panama Papers" tax evasion scandal, which revealed how many of the world's wealthy stashed assets in offshore companies.
The leaked trove of 11.5 million files from their company Mossack Fonseca implicated influential figures including billionaires, politicians and even sports stars.
The 2016 revelations rocked governments, exposed high-profile personalities, triggered scores of investigations around the world and dealt a blow to Panama’s reputation as an offshore financial hub.
Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson was forced to resign after it was revealed his family had offshore accounts.
Then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified for life from office after being implicated in the documents.
Others implicated included former British premier David Cameron, football star Lionel Messi, Argentina’s then-president Mauricio Macri, and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, to name but a few.
The files were leaked to a German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Many of those caught up in the scandal put forward reasons to explain their offshore presence and said they did not act illegally.
Even so, Mossack Fonseca said in 2018 that it would close due to "irreparable damage" to its reputation.
Panama has adopted new legislation since the scandal broke out, but the Central American country remains on a European Union tax haven blacklist.
The fact that part of its laws against money laundering did not exist when the Panama Papers revelations emerged could complicate efforts by the judiciary to achieve convictions.
In Panama, the crime of tax evasion has only been punishable since 2019 and for amounts greater than $300,000 annually.
In 2023, Mossack and Fonseca were tried in Panama for alleged money laundering in Brazil’s "Car Wash" corruption scandal involving construction group Odebrecht.
The prosecution requested up to 12 years in prison for both in that case. The sentence has not yet been announced.
The latest trial is expected to run until April 26, according to the judiciary.
On October 3, 2021, SaharaReporters reported that a new global investigation exposing the offshore hideaways of some of the world’s most powerful personalities was launching after two years of discreet work by investigative journalists around the world.
The project, known as Pandora Papers, was facilitated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJ, which obtained a trove of 11.9 million confidential files.
The reporting involved 600 journalists from 150 news organisations around the world, including Premium Times.
It revealed the financial secrets of not less than 35 current and former world leaders, and more than 330 public officials in more than 91 countries and territories.
The Panama Papers series launched five years after the Panama Papers Revelations which were published in 2016.
That investigation exposed offshore companies linked to more than 140 politicians in more than 50 countries – including 14 world leaders.
It also uncovered offshore hideaways tied to mega-banks, corporate bribery scandals, drug kingpins, Syria’s air war on its own citizens, and a network of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin who shuffled as much as $2 billion around the world.
In the course of that investigation in Nigeria, more than 30 stories with damning details revealing the secret offshore asset of many prominent Nigerians, were published by Premium Times.
It is not illegal for Nigerians who are not public officers to own offshore accounts, and many prominent businesses do have them.
However, some public officials found to have accounts did not disclose them as expected by law.
The newspaper’s investigations revealed the secret offshore assets of Senate President Bukola Saraki and his wife Toyin; as well as those of Mr Saraki’s predecessor, David Mark.
It also revealed how the late governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, began looting his state and hiding public funds in offshore structures and how a former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, organised the stealing of the oil-rich state’s fund via offshore companies.
The investigations also revealed a network of shell companies in offshore tax havens linked to Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, and his brother, Sayyu Dantata; as well as the offshore companies of Wale Tinubu, the chief executive of Nigeria’s biggest indigenous oil company, Oando Plc, among others.
Similarly, the stories also exposed the secret offshore company of one of Africa’s most influential televangelists, Temitope Joshua, popularly called T.B. Joshua, who died in June 2021.
Other prominent Nigerians named in the investigations were former Minister of Defence and billionaire businessman, Theophilus Danjuma; businessman, Hakeem Belo-Osagie; Globacom CEO, Mike Adenuga; Governor Abubakar Sadiq Sani Bello of Niger State; the late Ooni of Ife, Okunade Sijuwade; former Arik Air Chairman, Joseph Arumemi-Johnson and his wife, Mary, as well as two then-serving senators – Andy Uba (Anambra) and Ibrahim Gobir (Sokoto).
The investigation also revealed that former Anambra governor, Peter Obi had several secret business dealings and relationships including some he clandestinely set up and operated overseas, including in notorious tax and secrecy havens in ways that breached Nigerian laws.
When Premium Times contacted Obi, he was said to have admitted that he did not declare the companies and the funds and properties they held in his asset declaration filings with the Code of Conduct Bureau, the Nigerian government agency that deals with the issues of corruption, conflict of interest, and abuse of office by public servants.
He claimed he was unaware that the law expected him to declare assets or companies he jointly owned with his family members or anyone else.
Other top businesspersons, politicians, and their family members were also found in the infamous database, including those who were then holding public offices.
The revelations sparked outrage across Nigeria, with activists, civil society organisations, the labour movement, and the general public calling for extensive probes of those mentioned. But none of the violators has so far been prosecuted or sanctioned.