Panama Papers: The Mega Leak Mystery Unfolded

By siliconindia | Tuesday, 05 April 2016, 09:53 Hrs

BENGALURU: The agenda of secretively setting up offshore entities around the globe to avoid taxpaying, inducing huge black money is at the core of the Panama Papers Leak. The first Sunday of the April, 2016 was stormed with the biggest leak of the millennium, revealed and reported by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in coordination with around 100 journalism firms all over the world, reports WIRED.

How the World’s Biggest Data Leak Unfolded

According to the telephonic communication between ICIJ director Gerard Ryle and WIRED, The eight month long-lasting whistleblower leak project was seeded in late 2014. Bastian Obermayer, reporter in German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung was contacted by an unknown source through encrypted chat. The source conveyed to share huge documents containing information of global tax evasion involving a Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to expose these crimes in front of the world.

During course of the communication, Obermayer and source transacted data and chats through numerous encrypted channels as source asserted that his/her life is in danger and can’t meet in person revealing his/her identity for security reasons. Both the participants used weird ways of question-answer drill to confirm the authenticity of each other while re-connecting to take the conversation forward. As the source said to the reporter that the data will be “More than you have ever seen”, the final stockpile of leaked data went up to 2.6 terabytes. After obtaining and analyzing first few pieces of the data, Suddeutsche Zeitung involved the ICIJ staff to assist and coordinate with their reporters during this huge investigation. Except Obermayer and leaker, no one knows the channels and technologies used to transfer a vast amount of data files (11.5 million documents) anonymously. “I learned a lot about making the safe transfer of big files,” states Obermayer. The received digital documentation is a collection of more than 4.8 million emails, 3 million database files, and 2.1 million PDFs from Mossack Fonseca that created large number of shell companies for clientele, stashing their illicit foreign holding and other illegal assets.

“Panama Papers” has revealed names of many globally renowned celebrities, world leaders, government employees, athletes, and business tycoons involved in the scam of owning off-the-shelf companies, hidden properties resulting in the gigantic amount of black money.

The journalism has taken a step forward by blending the latest technology encryption tools with entire investigation to intercept and bring out these crimes and issues that the global economy needs to address and take apropos legal action on it. The list of names coming out from last two days based on the detailed analysis of Panama Papers, has shaken the world as many of them are the “people in power” and impacting personalities for many countries.

Let’s wait and see what impact this breakthrough leak will have on the future of the persons and firms that will be disclosed in next few weeks.