Les Panama Papers (« documents panaméens » en français1) désignent la fuite de plus de 11,5

millions de documents confidentiels issus du cabinet d'avocats panaméen Mossack Fonseca,

détaillant des informations sur plus de 214 000 sociétés offshore ainsi que les noms des actionnaires
de ces sociétés. Parmi eux se trouvent des hommes politiques, des milliardaires, des sportifs de haut
niveau ou des célébrités. Les chefs d’État ou de gouvernement de six pays — l'Arabie saoudite,
l'Argentine, les Émirats arabes unis, l'Islande, le Royaume-Uni et l'Ukraine — sont directement
incriminés par ces révélations, tout comme des membres de leurs gouvernements, et des proches et
des associés de chefs de gouvernements de plus de 40 autres pays, tels que l'Afrique du Sud, la
Chine, la Corée du Sud, le Brésil, la France, l'Inde, la Malaisie, le Mexique, le Pakistan, la Russie et la
Syrie2.

Le nom de Panama Papers est une référence aux Pentagon Papers de la guerre du Viêt Nam, nom
donné au dossier secret de 7 000 pages révélé au public en 1971 par le New York Times et une
quinzaine d'autres journaux américains3.

Les documents fournis par un lanceur d'alerte anonyme et non rémunéré (connu seulement sous le
pseudonyme de John Doe) remontent aux années 1970 et vont jusqu'à fin 2015, représentant un
total de 2,6 téraoctets de données. Initialement envoyées au quotidien allemand Süddeutsche
Zeitung4 en 2015, les données ont rapidement été partagées avec les rédactions de médias dans plus
de 80 pays par l'intermédiaire du consortium international des journalistes d'investigation5 (ICIJ)
basé à Washington6. Les premiers articles sont publiés le 3 avril 20167, accompagnés de 149
documents8. D'autres révélations suivront les publications initiales, l'intégralité des sociétés
mentionnées par les documents devant être dévoilée d'ici à mai 20169.

Ces documents concernent des sociétés extraterritoriales — dites offshore — que la firme Mossack
Fonseca a aidé à créer, ou avec qui ses clients ont été en contact. Si dans la législation de la plupart
des pays, les sociétés offshore ne sont pas illégales en elles-mêmes, c'est leur usage comme sociétés
écrans dans l'évasion fiscale ou le blanchiment d'argent qui l'est.
The Panama Papers (Spanish: Papeles de Panamá) are 2.6TB of data or 11.5 million leaked
documents that detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore
entities leaked beginning on 3 April 2016. The documents, some dating back to the 1970s, were
created by, and taken from, former Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack
Fonseca.

The documents contain personal financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials
that had previously been kept private.[10] While offshore business entities are legal (see Offshore
Magic Circle), reporters found that some of the Mossack Fonseca shell corporations were used for
illegal purposes, including fraud, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.

"John Doe", the whistleblower who leaked the documents to German journalist Bastian Obermayer
from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), remains anonymous, even to the journalists who
worked on the investigation. "My life is in danger", the whistleblower told them. In a May 6, 2016
statement, John Doe cited income inequality as the reason for the action and said they leaked the
documents "simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the
injustices they described". Doe added that they had never worked for any government or intelligence
agency and expressed willingness to help prosecutors if granted immunity from prosecution. After SZ
verified that the statement did in fact come from the source for the Panama Papers, the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) posted the full document on its website.

SZ asked the ICIJ for help because of the amount of data involved. Journalists from 107 media
organizations in 80 countries analyzed documents detailing the operations of the law firm. After
more than a year of analysis, the first news stories were published on April 3, 2016, along with 150 of
the documents themselves. The project represents an important milestone in the use of data
journalism software tools and mobile collaboration.

The documents were dubbed the Panama Papers because of the country they were leaked from, but
the Panamanian government expressed strong objections to the name over concerns that it would
tarnish the government's and country's image worldwide, as did other entities in Panama and
elsewhere. Some media outlets covering the story have used the name "Mossack Fonseca papers".

In October 2020, German authorities issued an international arrest warrant for the two founders of
the law firm at the core of the tax evasion scandal exposed by the Panama Papers. Cologne
prosecutors are seeking German-born Jürgen Mossack and Panamanian Ramón Fonseca on charges
of accessory to tax evasion and forming a criminal organization.
The film opens with Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca introducing themselves, along with the
concept and practices of money laundering. The pair continue to act as narrators for three stories of
people around the world who are adversely effected by the machinations of their company, Mossack
Fonseca. While the story has been somewhat fictionalized, the names of the law firm at the centre of
the scandal, along with those of its founders, were not.

Characters Ellen Martin and her husband, Joe, are on a pleasure boat, the Ethan Allen at Lake
George, New York when it capsizes, drowning Joe. When Ellen tries to get compensation from the
boating company for Joe's death, she cannot because the reinsurance company that the boat
company's owner and son, Matthew, bought their policy from was sold to another company based
out of Nevis. The Nevis-based company is actually a trust of one of Mossack's shell corporations,
which is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for fraud. When her attempts to
contact Mossack and the Nevis-based company are unsuccessful, Ellen travels there to confront
Malchus Boncamper, the manager of the trust. Malchus tricks Ellen and escapes to Miami, where he
is arrested by IRS-CI Special Agents at a Miami airport.

The second story is about Simone, who is the daughter of Charles, an African billionaire. When
Simone discovers her best friend is having an affair with Charles, he offers her shares (supposedly
worth $20 million) in one of his investment companies to keep her silence. She accepts his offer, but
when she travels to Mossack's offices in Panama City to claim the shares, they turn out to be
worthless because they are actually part of a shell company under Mossack that only exists on paper.

The third story is a dramatization of the death of Neil Heywood, part of the Wang Lijun incident.
Heywood (renamed "Maywood" in the film), is an intermediary for wealthy Chinese looking to funnel
money abroad. He visits a Chongqing hotel to meet Gu Kailai. Maywood demands and pressures Gu
for a much higher price if she wants him to continue laundering money for her family through a shell
company Mossack owns. Gu responds by poisoning Maywood's drinks. Gu discloses the incident and
reports Maywood to Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun who secretly records the conversation; he
then reports her to the Chinese government. The story ends with the arrest of Gu and her husband
Bo Xilai for Maywood's murder and for corruption.

The film ends with the leaking of the Panama Papers and subsequent police raids on Mossack
Fonseca, the brief imprisonment of Mossack and Fonseca, and the shutdown of the firm. Mossack
and Fonseca, along with Meryl Streep as herself, remind viewers that many such companies still
exist, and the practice of money laundering and corruption using fake trusts and shell companies
based in tax havens is still widespread. The film ends with Streep making a statement about the
immediate need for campaign finance reforms in the US before adopting the Statue of Liberty's pose.