211949 The public gained its first access to the Panama Papers records of over 200,000 secret offshore companies when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists put a searchable database up online, AFP reports.

The report includes names of 37 Armenian citizens, 127 Azerbaijanis, as well as 82 Georgian citizens.

The database, built on just a portion of the 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, reveals more than 360,000 names of individuals and companies behind the anonymous shell firms, the ICIJ said.

It reveals the full extent to which the world’s wealthy, alongside criminals, create such nominee companies to stash and transfer assets out of sight of the law and tax officials.

Reports already published in April based on the explosive dossier linked some of the world’s most powerful leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron and others to unreported offshore companies.

Until now access to the total cache of documents, originally provided by a mysterious “John Doe”, was restricted to the ICIJ and a select group of international media.

AFP. Panama Papers database on shell companies goes online

0,,18121782_303,00 (DW) Secret agents from several countries, including intermediaries of the CIA, reportedly used the services of Mossack Fonseca law firm to hide their schemes. The claims are the latest in the Panama Papers leak.

German newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported on Tuesday that “secret agents and their informants have made wide use of the company’s services” and opened shell companies to conceal their activities wrote the newspaper. “Among them are close intermediaries of the CIA,” the newspaper reported.

Data breach

The Munich-based newspaper obtained a huge stash of 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca and shared them with more than 100 media groups through the International Consortium.

The massive data breach implicated tax dodgers from Reykjavik to Riyadh. On Tuesday, the “Süddeutsche” reported that Mossack Fonseca clients also included “several players” in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which saw senior US officials facilitate secret arms sales to Iran in a bid to secure the release of American hostages and fund Nicaragua’s Contra rebels.

The Panama Papers also reveal that “current or former high-ranking officials of the secret services of at least three countries… Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Rwanda” are listed amongst the company’s clients, the paper said.

Among them was Sheikh Kamal Adham, the former Saudi intelligence chief who died in 1999. Adham “spent the 1970s as one of the CIA’s key intermediaries” in the Middle East, the daily said.

Political leaders iplicated

The huge leak, which hit headlines on April 3, shed light on how the world’s rich and powerful have used offshore companies to stash their assets. As a result, Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigned and pressure has mounted on a slew of other leaders around the world, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, who revealed that he had inherited an offshore fund, set up by his father.

ksb/rc (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Panama Papers reveal 37 Armenian citizens as database goes online

Panama Papers indicate spies used Mossack Fonseca to ‘conceal’ activities