Mossack Fonseca worker arrested in Switzerland

Banks, wealthy individuals and corporations like to sell this story: they're simply following the law. While there's certainly a lot of that I also think there's an awful lot of outright fraud and tax evasion. Look at the Swiss bank BSI settling criminal charges with the US where BSI admitted they would deliver debit cards full of cash to clients without names on them. That's not legal. It's repatriation of funds into the US thus making the money taxable in the US.

Here's another example:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/how-eas-jet-setti...

I applaud the Panama Papers whistle-blower. The veil of secrecy is used to hide way too much. Just look at the TPP/TIPP negotiations as a prime example.

We now have a financial system that seems willing to be criminal accomplices to fraud. I have to applaud the US for going after these banks.

They wrote most of the laws they leveraged. When the OECD or other institution convinced the country they manipulated to revert their laws, they simply moved their clients to the next island country, got the same laws passed and often negotiated being the sole incorporation service (see their business in Nieu)

There was a time when I would have noticed what you did, and left it at that, but this is deeper

>do they help people follow the law in the most optimal way

Google doing double Dutch with Irish cowgirl is following the law in the most optimal way. We know where money is and what laws they are subject to.

A poor musician, a friend of Putin, surprisingly happens to be not so poor, ie. like $2B far from being poor - there have been no law followed here.

They provide the necessary vehicles for their clients to break the law. They do this knowing that this is how their clients will use those vehicles. While this may not be a violation of the law in the jurisdiction in which they reside, it is certainly on shaky moral ground (being extraordinarily generous).

Apparently (from the leaked documents), they were willing to backdate documents if their clients requested it. They would charge more the further back it was dated.

I'm not an expert on Panamanian law, but that seems likely to be illegal pretty much everywhere. They are currently under investigation in Panama.