By: Harman Kaur
The Panama Papers is currently being called the largest data leak in the history of journalism.
The Panama Papers are a list of 11.5 million offshore accounts of companies, politicians, and celebrities who tried to avoid taxes. The list broke out in early April by an anonymous source who calls himself/herself “John Doe”. The list contained people like the Argentinian president, Mauricio Macri, Bollywood stars Aishwarya Rai and her father-in-law Abhishek Bachchan, and the President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino.
President Obama addressed the leak during a press conference saying that the actions of these individuals are not illegal since the laws were poorly designed. He claims that the individuals involved were able to hire many lawyers and accounts to help them find loopholes to be able to escape the responsibility of paying taxes like the rest of the American people. Many countries and their leaders have ordered agencies to look into the leak and find out who has used offshore accounts to avoid taxes, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The list also brings repercussions to many. Iceland’s Prime Minister, Sigmunder Davio Gunnlaugsson, announced his resignation on April 5th due to his involvement in the Panama Papers. Many other public officials are receiving pressure from the public to resign.
“John Doe” reported documents he found due to his concern on what he was seeing on these documents. He/she wished to remain anonymous due to the fear of their life being threatened because there are so many prominent individuals involved.
Only 200 American names have been released and some of Hillary Clinton’s campaign donors seemed to be involved in this tax-free haven that the rest of the world has found. The US has currently started a criminal investigation into the 200 names that were leaked in the Panama Papers.
