Currently, there’s enough political ‘spin’ being churned and re-churned through the mainstream media to make one’s head – well, spin.

It’s been fascinating to observe the widely varied responses in international media and politics to the recent leak of the Mossack Fonseca data, popularized as the Panama Papers. Reactions have ranged from outrage, to demands for action, to claims of political agendas and intelligence operations.

Over the last few years, high profile data leaks and data dumps (Sony PSN, Ashley Madison, iCloud etc) have forced cybersecurity issues into mainstream public discussion. However, each time there is a leak it also exposes more secretive corporate practices and raises questions over the ethics of the entities in question. Indeed, there are interesting parallels in leaks such as that of Ashley Madison and more recently the Mossack Fonseca data. Both entities, while operating in vastly different industries with very different business models – one is essentially a dating website while the other is an established investment bank – when it comes to the data they hold the considerations for its storage and protection and the implications of breach or compromise are very similar. Each company holds highly personal, sensitive information on individual people and their associated networks, finances, and behaviors.

However, the main focus of the recent Panama Papers story has not been so much about their contents but about their implications for a man who has become somewhat of an obsession for the mainstream media – Vladimir Putin. His image has been on the front page of all the Western propaganda outlets, as their campaign against the Russian leader only seems to intensify with time. The only problem for the West is that the Panama Papers have uncovered absolutely no evidence that directly connects Putin with the numerous allegations in the Western press.

From the outset there have been serious questions regarding the origin and authenticity of the Panama Papers, suggesting that the Mossack Fonseca scandal was initially being carefully managed by the Western journalistic establishment, selectively releasing stories without allowing the public to see the entire trove of documents and data. Now arguably the most important data leak and whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, has put its weight behind such allegations. On Wednesday, 6 April, this tweet appeared on the internet: “#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP [i.e. the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project] which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros,” as promulgated by the official WikiLeaks twitter account (@wikileaks). Later on the same day, this tweet followed: “#PanamaPapers: WikiLeaks’ Kristinn Hrafnsson calls for data leak to be released in full.”

Guilt by Association

The Panama Papers reveal the existence of numerous offshore companies, which are basically means used to launder or simply hide money in offshore financial centres, commonly referred to as “tax havens.” Many prominent names explicitly figure in the leaked papers, names such as those of the Prime Ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the names of the children of the president of Azerbaijan or even the name of the King of Saudi Arabia. Predictably however, in the mainstream media, with the BBC and the Guardian leading the charge the name of Russia’s President is mentioned time and again, as if the Panama Papers were primarily a leaked time-bomb about to strike the figure of Vladimir Putin hard and fast. In reality though, his name is nowhere explicitly mentioned in the Papers. Instead, the ICIJ merely talks about “associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” associates such as Boris and Arkady Rotenberg and Sergi Roldugin are mentioned — the first being Russian businessmen and “oligarchs,” as the West likes to refer to Russian capitalists, and the latter a Russian businessman and cellist. The Guardian went as far as calling him “Putin’s best friend,” in view of the fact that he is Putin’s daughter Maria Putina’s godfather and apparently the one who introduced Russia’s current president to Lyudmila Shkrebneva, Putin’s wife between 1983 and 2014. Thus, it seems that the Panama Papers paint Putin guilty by association. While, Vladimir Putin and the exact nature of his arguable friendships and possible business dealings are beyond my reach, the mainstream media’s fixation with the Russian President seems strangely beholden to Obama administration policy. Bloomberg’s Alan Katz, for instance, recently pointed out that Washington is planning to scour the Panama Papers for the names of “people who may have helped companies or individuals evade sanctions related to Russia’s role in destabilizing Ukraine.” With a view towards adding these names to the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned parties of course.

The immediate reaction to news breaking of the Mossack Fonseca leak was to spend a few minutes looking at the funding sources of one of the main organizations handling the leak: the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). As listed on their own website, recent funders include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations in addition to the Ford Foundation. Their site also states that the “ICIJ was launched as a project of the Center for Public Integrity.” A look at the financial supporters of the Center for Public Integrity reveals that they include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the Rockefeller Family Fund; and the Open Society Foundations once again. We should remember that at the end of last year, Russia banned the Open Society Foundations and other groups owned by Soros as they were a threat to national security.

National Socialist and Intelligence background of Mossack Fonseca

From the Daily Mail of 4 April 2016:

The man behind a Panama ‘tax scam’ that guards the clandestine wealth of the global elite is the son of a Nazi SS officer from a unit known as the ‘Death’s Head division’. Jürgen Mossack is at the heart of the biggest financial data leak in history, and has allegedly been helping world leaders, politicians and celebrities launder money, dodge sanctions and evade tax from his base in Panama.

It has now been revealed that his father, Erhard Mossack, was a member of the Nazi fighting unit known as the ‘Death’s Head division’, a dreaded force during the Second World War.

According to reports, U.S. Army intelligence archives hold a file on him as he allegedly offered his services to the U.S. government as an informant, claiming ‘he was about to join a clandestine organisation, either of former Nazis now turned Communist… or of unconverted Nazis cloaking themselves as Communists.’

The old intelligence files indicate that Mossack’s father later ended up in Panama, where he offered to spy, this time for the CIA, on Communist activity in nearby Cuba.

It’s also worth not­ing that the Inter­a­gency Work­ing Group which was set up in 1999 to find and dis­close infor­ma­tion related to inves­ti­ga­tions of Nazi and Japan­ese WWII war crimes does con­tain a record for Erhard Mos­sack in the sec­tion for FBI files. There isn’t much infor­ma­tion avail­able, but in the “cat­e­gory” sec­tion for Mos­sack it lists “For­eign Coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence (For­merly Inter­nal Secu­rity, For­eign Intel­li­gence)”, indicating that the US likely took Mos­sack up on his offer.

Although the media have focused – predictably – on asso­ciates of Vladimir Putin and Chi­nese pres­i­dent Xi, other clients of Mos­sack Fon­seca include Imee Mar­cos, daugh­ter of the late dic­ta­tor Fer­di­nand Mar­cos and Car­men Thyssen-Bornemisza, daugh­ter of Hein­rich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

So we can see then that this alleged leak likely has its origin in a Western capitalist intelligence operation spearheaded by Soros/Rockefeller network entities such as the Center for Public Integrity and the Open Society Foundations to further this concerted propaganda campaign against Russia and the enemies of the West. Even though the Panama Papers have caused a little trouble for a few token puppets of the Anglo-American establishment – David Cameron for instance – the main focus of the leaks has been to target the forces that have stood up to the West – Putin, Assad etc.