Panama Papers: 10 things we've learned

The leak of 11.5 million documents from one of the world's
most secret companies, Panamanian law firm Mossack
Fonseca, has grabbed headlines around the world. So what
have we actually learned from the Panama Papers?
1. It does what it says on the tin
A tax haven is a tax haven. This may sound simple but,
although there were always lots of accusations that so-called
Offshore Financial Centres were little more than places where
the rich, corrupt and criminal could hide their ill-gotten gains,
the proof was not always there.
The countries themselves talk about their "specialist financial
expertise" and "tax planning" abilities, while their critics say
that this was being used as a front for crime on a massive
scale. The sheer size of the release of documents from
Mossack Fonseca has enabled us all to see numerous
examples of just what has been going on. We always
suspected it was a can of worms - now the lid has been lifted
and we know for certain that it is.
2. Everybody needs friends they can trust
None of the money that seems to have flowed from Russia
into tax havens belongs to President Putin, but billions of
dollars of it seems to belong to his friends. For the Kremlin,
this is a sign that the revelations are driven by Putinphobia and
those determined to do down Russia. For most other people it
looks like the president is using his trusted friends to launder
money for him.
You can take your pick but if you think that this is a conspiracy
against President Putin, you might have to explain why one of
his best friends, a Russian classical cellist, has made quite so
much money.
3. Iceland is more interesting than we thought
For all its beauty and the famous collapse of its banking
system the assumption up until now has been that Iceland, like
its Scandinavian cousins, is one of the good guys - honest,
decent and trustworthy.
But the Icelandic prime minister has had to resign over
accusations he hid millions of dollars in a company in the
British Virgin Islands - a company that had a direct interest in
the health and wealth of Iceland's banks - which as prime
minister he was responsible for. Sigmundur David
Gunnlaugsson has insisted he and his wife have followed
Icelandic law and have paid all their taxes in Iceland but that is
not really the point, not when your country was brought to its
knees by a banking crisis.
4. Common or garden criminals' money is as good as
anyone else's
While much of the focus has been into the dealings of
dictators and corrupt regimes around the world, it seems that
Panama is not above helping good old-fashioned robbers. For
it is also alleged that Mossack Fonseca helped launder the
millions stolen during the notorious Brink's Mat gold bullion
robbery of 1983, when three and a half tonnes of gold
disappeared.
Allegedly the Panamanian company tried to stop the British
police from tracking down that cash, by setting up a company
for a property dealer called Gordon Parry. Even though it knew
Mr Parry was laundering money from the Brink's Mat robbery,
it even even helped him regain control of the stolen money
when the police were drawing near. Mr Parry was finally caught
in 1990 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
5. There is still a great deal of explaining to do
Some of the leaked files from Mossack Fonseca show it
enabled a leading regime figure in Syria, Rami Makhlouf, to
keep his companies trading , despite being blacklisted by US
Treasury sanctions and UK sanctions. The papers also show
the Foreign Office in the UK was aware of one of those
companies.
In 2011, after sanctions on Mr Makhlouf were in place, HSBC -
one of Britain's largest banks - asked the governor of the
British Virgin Islands for a certificate of incumbency for Drex
Technologies, one of the businesses owned by Mr Makhlouf.
That certificate is basically an identity check.
In order to get it approved, the governor of the British Virgin
Islands needed to get it signed by an official at the Foreign
Office on behalf of the foreign secre