A Panamanian court has acquitted 28 people charged with money laundering in connection with the now-defunct law firm Mossack Fonseca, the epicenter of the “Panama Papers” international tax evasion scandal.
Among those acquitted on Friday were the firm’s founders, Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca, the latter of whom died in May in a Panamanian hospital.
During the trial, which was held in the Central American country’s capital in April, the prosecution asked for 12 years in prison for the duo, the maximum sentence for money laundering.
However Judge Baloisa Marquinez acquitted the pair and 26 others after finding that evidence taken from the law firm’s servers had not been gathered in line with due process, raising doubts about its “authenticity and integrity,” a court statement said.
The judge also ruled that “the rest of the evidence was not sufficient and conclusive to determine the criminal responsibility of the defendants,” the court statement said.
Leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca in 2016 revealed how many of the world’s wealthy stashed assets in offshore companies, triggering scores of investigations around the globe.
Those implicated included former British premier David Cameron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, football star Lionel Messi, Argentina’s then-president Mauricio Macri and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, to name but a few.
The Panama Papers are a massive leak of financial documents that were released in April 2016, PUNCH Online reports.
These documents, totaling 11.5 million files, were from the database of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
They revealed information about more than 214,000 offshore entities.
The leak exposed how wealthy individuals, public officials, and entities used offshore tax havens to hide assets and evade taxes.
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