Romanians and the Panama Papers
According to the Panama Papers, Mossack Fonseca established and managed offshore entities for clients from over 200 countries, including Romanians.
Roxana Vasile, 06.04.2016, 13:53
The Prime Minister
of Iceland on Tuesday became the first European political figure to fall victim
of the data leak disclosing how heads of state, top ranking politicians,
billionaires, athletes and criminal networks have used dozens of tax havens to
hide their money and avoid taxation in their countries. The current
journalistic investigation is being carried out by over 100 media institutions,
which have managed to get hold of documents from the secret archives of Mossack
Fonseca, a leading global provider for legal and trust services, based in
Panama, hence the name of the scandal: the Panama Papers. These archive
documents show that, starting in 1977 up until 2015, Mossack Fonseca established
or managed over 214,000 offshore entities in 21 tax havens for clients from
over 200 countries and territories, including Romania. Rise Project, a
community of journalists investigating organized crime and corruption in
Romania, has gained access to that data. The Executive Director of the
organization, Pavel Radu, has promised disclosures about important people in
the country.
Pavel Radu: We are
currently looking into data concerning some 100 people who used offshore
companies, both for their businesses based in the country, and to set up bank
accounts elsewhere in the world. We are working on that, and we will soon have
lots of material. These are people from all fields, but I cannot give you any
details right now. What I can tell you is that they are business people,
lawyers, big names in the oil industry, mining industry, and so on. They are
some of the most powerful business people in the country, and now we are
conducting investigations to see exactly who did what. As soon as we have clear
information, we will publish it on our website.
Romanian tax authorities have
already announced that a working group made up of anti-fraud inspectors, tax
inspectors, and inspectors specializing in verifying the assets of natural
persons, managing tax information and forced executions has already started to
look into the information leaked and made public in the Panama Papers scandal.
The Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism
(DIICOT) will too conduct its own investigation, in order to establish whether
the current cases, or the ones already settled, contain data that could confirm
the information disclosed. Also, the Budget – Finance Committee of the Chamber
of Deputies has announced it is currently sending invitations to
representatives of the tax authorities and the National Office for the
Prevention and Control of Money Laundering to discuss the Panama Papers. The
stakes here are quite high, given that the Romanian authorities have been
trying hard for years to curb corruption and prevent embezzlement.
