Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca founders arrested over bribery scandal

Ramon Fonseca, founding partner of law firm Mossack Fonseca

The founders of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal, were arrested in Panama City on Thursday as the country’s attorney general launched a probe into their alleged connections with Brazil’s sprawling Lava Jato corruption scandal.

Juergen Mossack and his colleague Ramon Fonseca, a former adviser to Panama’s president Juan Carlos Varela, were taken into custody and transferred to police cells in the capital overnight for further questioning on Friday, their defence attorney Elías Solano was quoted telling reporters.

Panamanian prosecutors raided the offices of Mossack Fonseca on Thursday. In a press conference on Kenia Porcell, Panama’s attorney general, said she had information that identified Mossack Fonseca “allegedly as a criminal organisation that is dedicated to hiding money assets from suspicious origins”.

She said the firm’s Brazilian representative had allegedly been instructed to conceal documents and to remove evidence of illegal activities related to the Lava Jato case.

“Put simply, the money comes from bribes, circulated via certain corporate entities to return bleached or washed to Panama,” said Porcell.  (more...)

Panama Papers: Mossack Fonseca founders arrested over bribery scandal

Related:

'Panama Papers' firm partner says Panama leader received Odebrecht 'donations'

Dirty Secrets: How Tax Havens Destroy the Economy

The Spoils of War: The Secret Story of WWII Japanese & Nazi Gold

The use of suspect gold to launder drug profits is well established.  One example of such laundering activities concerns a rogue airline that had the reputation of flying anything to anywhere.  Over a two-year period between 1989-91, the airline made four flights carrying gold bullion weighing 160 tonnes with a market value of two billion dollars.  Each of the four flights carried boxes with twelve bars of gold to a box that overall weighed 41 tonnes per flight.  All the boxes were palletised for easy loading and accompanied by a guard.  The flights originated from Medellin, Columbia, and were airlifted to London and apparently cleared both ends without customs inspection.

 The amount of gold shipped was more than the gold reserves of most central banks.  The question then arises: where did this gold originate?  The likelihood is that it was part of the vast amounts of gold plundered in WWII by the Axis powers.

The story about what really happened to the loot plundered by the Nazis and Japanese during WWII remains one of the best-kept secrets of the last fifty years.  Few outside of the charmed circle of initiated insiders possess any knowledge whatsoever of the true dimensions of what can be described as the biggest cover-up of all time.

But it is not just public awareness of what exactly “happened” to this plunder in the post war years that is the cause of supreme unease amongst the powers that be.  It is the sheer magnitude of treasure forcibly confiscated by the Axis powers that causes trepidation.  Were the actual dollar numbers involved to be revealed, it would lay bare an even more sensitive secret – one that has endured for a hundred or more years.  

A decades long propaganda campaign had served to focus public attention on the gold stolen from governments – known as monetary gold – as a means of eclipsing from public view far larger amounts of privately held gold that was also stolen.

The heavy cloak of disinformation and double-talk had still another layer.  By putting the spotlight on Nazi plunder from the very beginning, public attention was diverted away from the industrial scale looting undertaken by Japan’s special plunder teams known as the “Golden Lily.”  And it is here that the real story dwells.  (more...)

The Spoils of War: The Secret Story of WWII Japanese & Nazi Gold

Related:

Golden Lilly, and its little brother

Funds and Games

Is DJ Trump the End of The American Century?

Background:

War Against the Weak: Eugenics, Hitler, Margaret Sanger’s Planned Murderhood

The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People

Christopher Simpson: America's Recruitment of Nazis

York board investigators ‘overwhelmed’ with complainants

"It takes a village..."

Investigators looking into troubles at the York Region school board are so overwhelmed by the number of people coming forward to talk they are now asking that all further submissions be made via email.

One of the investigators, Patrick Case, tweeted that so many people want to meet with him and fellow investigator Sue Herbert “that we may never finish,” and urged people to send “new comments confidentially” to their email address.

But the move has some parents and staff worried about just how private their complaints will be, as Case and Herbert have warned that written materials could be subject to access to information requests down the road.

Jason Koblovsky, a parent in Georgina, believes that because the potential emails could be made public, it will be a deterrent for many staff and parents to participate.

“I am not sure why people’s email would be open to freedom of information requests,” he said. “It seems like they are trying to warn people off from responding. I think ensuring confidentiality is really important.”   (more...)

York board investigators ‘overwhelmed’ with complainants

Related:

York school board needs new leadership

York school board needs new leadership

Now that the York Region District School Board has been placed under review by Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, many will be looking for answers as to how it can turn itself around.

The review, which will be conducted by human rights expert Patrick Case and former deputy minister Suzanne Herbert, will likely make recommendations regarding the need for more equity training and increased transparency. However, if the York board is serious about turning the page on its nadir, it would be wise to take a page from the once scandal-plagued Toronto District School Board and bring in new leadership.

York was once considered the crown jewel among Ontario’s school boards, and was the site of many innovations that were eventually rolled out province-wide. However, with the ignoring of racist incidents, senior administration officials resigning, and unconscionable behaviour by some of its leaders, it has clearly become dysfunctional. The situation it finds itself in is very similar to that of the TDSB, which itself was the subject of ministry mandated reviews in recent years.  (more...)

York school board needs new leadership

Related:

York trustee facing controversy takes medical leave

Background:

How does someone remain a school board trustee after calling a mother the 'N-word'?

Dark Arts: How a dark money network is taking power on both sides of the Atlantic.

It took corporate America a while to warm to Donald Trump. Some of his positions, especially on trade, horrified business leaders. Many of them favoured Ted Cruz or Scott Walker. But once he had secured the nomination, the big money began to recognise an unprecedented opportunity.

Trump was prepared not only to promote the cause of corporations in government, but to turn government into a kind of corporation, staffed and run by executives and lobbyists. His incoherence was not a liability but an opening: his agenda could be shaped. And the dark money network that some American corporations had already developed was perfectly positioned to shape it.

Dark money is the term used in the US for the undisclosed funding of organisations involved in political advocacy. Few people would see a tobacco company as a credible source on public health, or a coal company as a neutral commentator on climate change. To advance their political interests, such companies must pay others to speak on their behalf.

Soon after the Second World War, some of America’s richest people began setting up a network of thinktanks to promote their interests. These purport to offer dispassionate opinions on public affairs. But they are more like corporate lobbyists, working on behalf of those who founded and fund them. These are the organisations now running much of the Trump administration.  (more...)

Dark Arts: How a dark money network is taking power on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dirty Secrets: How Tax Havens Destroy the Economy

What happens when the rich are allowed to hide their money in tax havens, and what we should do about it? The Panama Papers demonstrated that the superrich hide their wealth from the rest of us. Dirty Secrets shows that this was not by accident, but by design. It was the result of a powerful alliance of the wealthy, their advisers and the state that has undermined all attempts to solve the tax haven problem.

This is because tax havens are the unacknowledged heart of globalized capitalism. Their purpose is to provide freedom from regulation. The exponents say this makes markets work and so we all gain. But this argument has now failed. Furthermore democracy itself is being threatened by the political fallout from the mistrust this regime has created.

The result is that tax havens are now a threat to the very system that supposedly spawned it. Dirty Secrets is the most revelatory examination of the crisis by a leading expert, but also offers solutions on how governments can regulate havens and what the world might look like without them.

Source:

Dirty Secrets: How Tax Havens Destroy the Economy

Related:

It’s Time to Shine a Light on the Shadowy World of the Tax Middle Men