About the Panama Papers

By Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Vanessa Wormer and Wolfgang Jaschensky

Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung
(SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a
Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the
world. These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business
dealings, no matter how shady.

In the months that
followed, the number of documents continued to grow far beyond the
original leak. Ultimately, SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of data,
making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with. The
source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in
return, apart from a few security measures.

The data provides rare
insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how
a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management
companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous:
from politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to
celebrities and professional athletes.