Panama Papers Scandal: 28 Accused Parties Found Not Guilty

More than two dozen defendants were found not guilty by a Panamanian court on Friday, eight years after 11 million confidential financial data were made public.

The prosecution had been requesting jail terms for the offense of money laundering.

A network of tax havens featuring individuals like Lionel Messi and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, was made public by the Panama Papers revelation.

“The Mossack Fonseca law firm and their associates set up a web of offshore companies to conceal money connected to illicit activities in the “car wash” corruption scandal of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht,” according to Panamanian prosecutors. xcxc

A portion of the shell companies that the company established had been utilized for tax evasion, fraud, or sidestepping international sanctions.

The judge, Baloisa Marquinez, cited insufficient evidence to support the allegations of money laundering.

Her findings cast doubt on the “authenticity and integrity” of the evidence that was taken from the law firm’s servers since it had not been obtained in accordance with due process.

At one point, Mossack Fonseca was the fourth-biggest offshore law company in the world.

Notably, Panama’s government made it feasible to determine who the ultimate beneficiary of limited liability firms and their assets was following the incident.