Mossack Fonseca
© Malta TodayPanama law firm Mossack Fonseca is the world’s fourth biggest provider of offshore services, having for more than 300,000 companies.
Biggest ever leak of records passed on to Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with the Guardian and the BBC; over 370 reporters spent a year verifying the documents.

370 reporters from 100 media organisations have spent a year analysing and verifying the documents.

The hidden wealth of some of the world's most prominent leaders, politicians and celebrities is to be revealed imminently by the leak of millions of documents showing the way the rich exploit secretive offshore tax regimes like Panama's.

The Guardian, one of several newspapers working with global partners, said journalists from more than 80 countries have been reviewing 11.5 million files leaked from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth biggest offshore law firm.

The leak is one of the biggest ever - larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013.

A Maltese connection will surely surface with energy minister Konrad Mizzi having been outed as having used a Panamanian shell company, Hearnville, to hide his beneficial ownership; the company is owned by the trustees of his New Zealand trust.

Although using offshore structures is entirely legal, the global rich use such financial vehicles for reasons of inheritance and estate planning, or to stash away assets from tax authorities.

Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca is the world's fourth biggest provider of offshore services, having for more than 300,000 companies.

It has already warned clients of the imminent 'Panamaleaks' revelations.

The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with the Guardian and the BBC.

370 reporters from 100 media organisations have spent a year analysing and verifying the documents.

The 'Panama Papers' reveal:

- Twelve national leaders, among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens: they include Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt's former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.

- Six members of the UK's House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to UK political parties have had offshore assets.

- The families of at least eight current and former members of China's supreme ruling body, the politburo, have been found to have hidden wealth offshore.

The company has denied any wrongdoing. It says it has acted beyond reproach for 40 years and that it has had robust due diligence procedures.