The Panama Papers: Bernie Saw It Coming Five Years Ago

Whether or not you support the guy, it's pretty interesting that he called foul on the Panama trade agreement and offshore tax havens in the way back when. Here's the video.



While it's been posited in the main Panama Papers thread that America appears to be getting off scotfree, and that the leak isn't what it seems (i.e. leaked with the goal of forcing a transfer of offshore cash to recently established tax-havens in the states, consolidating financial power, kicking Putin in the teeth, etc.) it's kind of stunning to know that a lot of U.S. lawmakers (including Sanders) apparently knew exactly where the whole hideous mess was headed.

It also implicates U.S. interests in a way that the press hasn't touched.

Related articles:

Panama Papers: Obama, Clinton Pushed Trade Deal Amid Warnings It Would Make Money Laundering, Tax Evasion Worse

Panama Trade Deal Would Undercut Efforts To Get Rich Americans To Pay Taxes

Passage of Colombia, Panama, and South Korea Trade Agreements - See more at: blogs.state.gov...

a reply to: Spookytraction

The Panama Papers only confirmed what we already knew - that many world leaders, business moguls, etc. are hoarding vast amounts of wealth in foreign banks and shell companies.

Bernie of course has been talking about issues like this for decades. The Panama Papers are simply providing us with the specific details.


By the way, do we really think this release of this sensitive information to Western Media Outlets is completely unbiased and objective in nature? I sure as hell HOPE no one here on ATS is that ignorant.

Insightful article about Corporate Media and the Panama Papers www.craigmurray.org.uk...

Ironically, that so far, all the national political leaders named are from socialist and communist countries.

originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: Spookytraction


By the way, do we really think this release of this sensitive information to Western Media Outlets is completely unbiased and objective in nature? I sure as hell HOPE no one here on ATS is that ignorant.

Insightful article about Corporate Media and the Panama Papers www.craigmurray.org.uk...

From the (sweet) article you linked:

What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they could trace?

I found a couple of sources that provide a plausible answer to that question, and apparently over 200 U.S. passports have already been found. Why aren't there more?

Americans may have figured out a way to add another soft party who has a different nationality or identity. Let’s say [Mossack Fonseca] had a lot of American account holders or clients. It took [the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act] over five years to get into place, which gave everyone plenty of time to close accounts and move their money—open up new corporations that didn’t look like they were held by Americans...

What should be one of the more shocking aspects of the documents is that Mossack Fonseca had a subsidiary to create American offshore corporations in Nevada, and it is a fact that the U.S. government has been talking about on and off over the years, about forcing U.S. corporations to disclose their beneficial ownership. It is a depressing fact that several administrations now have refused to make that a requirement… What’s happened is, some of the sleaziest offshore lawyers are now using American corporate shells to hide foreign corrupt activity. You’d think – you’d hope — that the U.S. government would crack down on this and do the right thing to force people to make public the beneficial ownership of corporation.

fusion.net...

Basically, they're saying that the stateside tax havens eliminate the need for Americans to go offshore, and that these sleazeball firms are multinational concerns.

Still, it looks like a few of the slower fish didn't slip the net in time:

Also in the database, about 3,500 shareholders of offshore companies who list U.S. addresses. And almost 3,100 companies are tied to offshore professionals based in Miami, New York, and other parts of the United States...

Robert Miracle of Bellevue, Wash., is in the files. He was indicted for a $65-million Seattle-area Ponzi scheme involving investment in Indonesian oilfields, with new investors’ money allegedly used to pay off past investors. Miracle was sentenced on May 13, 2011, to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion.

Miracle’s company was called Mcube Petroleum, and it remained an active shareholder in several offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands up until he pleaded guilty. The offshores were created by Mossack Fonseca.

Benjamin Wey is a U.S. citizen and president of New York Global Group. He was indicted last year, along with his Swiss banker, Seref Dogan Erbek, on securities fraud charges. Wey’s alleged scheme to conceal a true ownership interest in publicly traded companies was at the heart of the charges. Wey is accused of using offshores set up with Mossack Fonseca to disguise complicated transactions between Chinese operating companies and publicly traded U.S. shell companies.

The two “are believed to have profited in the tens of millions, while victim shareholders were left holding the bill,” Diego Rodriguez, an FBI official involved in the case, said in a statement at the time of indictment.

▪ Florida billionaire Igor Olenicoff, a commercial real estate mogul, appears in the data as a shareholder of Olen Oil Management Limited. He raised a national stir in 2007 after being sentenced to just two years of probation for tax evasion. He paid a $52 million fine after not declaring more than $200 million in offshore shell companies. More recently, he was found guilty in 2014 for making replicas of a pricey sculpture and was ordered to make restitution to the sculptors whose work he had copied.

▪ There’s Anthony J. Gumbiner, the Dallas-area chairman of Hallwood Group Inc. He’s a British national with deep Texas ties who settled an insider trading case in 1996 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, paying $1.7 million in penalties at the time.

A jetsetter in the 1980s, Gumbiner was known for his lavish lifestyle in Monte Carlo. More recently, he’s been tied up in litigation over oilfield investments. His Hallwood Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2009.

It wasn’t until 2015 that the law firm seemed to catch on to Gumbiner’s legal problems and started to conduct enhanced background checks. By then his offshore companies had been inactive since 2011.

▪ And there’s John Michael “Red” Crim, author of the self-published books “From Here to Malta,” and “I’ve Been Arrested, Now What?”

Federal jurors in Philadelphia in January 2008 convicted Crim and two associates in a plot to have investors use phony trusts to cheat the IRS out of roughly $10 million in tax revenue.

In an interview with McClatchy's project partner Fusion, at a halfway house in Los Angeles last February, Crim described how he brought business to Mossack Fonseca and other registered corporate agents...

In a separate case, federal authorities were unaware that a defendant in a fraud case had an offshore account with Mossack Fonseca. Internet phone company executive Jonathan Kaplan pleaded guilty in Bridgeport, Conn., in 2007 to accepting more than $400,000 in a commercial bribery scheme.

www.mcclatchydc.com...

originally posted by: IAMTAT
Ironically, that so far, all the national political leaders named are from socialist and communist countries.

That is funny!
We do know Bernie wont be on the list. He has no money, only debt. $65,000 on credit cards. What a leader.

a reply to: Spookytraction

Great analysis - unbelievable how corrupt U.S. Gov. is... are there any honest ones or are they all receiving hush money and other perks?

a reply to: FamCore

are there any honest ones

Bernie

a reply to: FamCore

it did do that but it did not ONLY do that. whats valuable to us citizens about the revelations, whats revealing, is it is evidence of how who and where, we've always known their have been a vague "them" doing it, these papers show us who some of "them" are. thats what matters here.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
Ironically, that so far, all the national political leaders named are from socialist and communist countries.

Ironically or purposefully.

We shall know in time, corruption exists across the board, needless to say this is precisely what Sanders warned about.

originally posted by: visitedbythem
We do know Bernie wont be on the list. He has no money, only debt. $65,000 on credit cards. What a leader.

WTF is wrong with some of you???

Now you criticize Sanders for NOT being a criminal on the take??? Because you'd much rather elect a leader who is cheating the system and yourselves in the process???

I just don't get it. You are shown proof of criminal activity that directly effects your own lives and shows how you're being ripped off and you talk sh*t about the one guy who's been against it from the start and who is still telling you about it now. Meanwhile you sit there and laugh at HIM.

Well, let me just say that he's not laughing and neither should you be. Sanders is not the joke, you are.

originally posted by: mOjOm

originally posted by: visitedbythem
We do know Bernie wont be on the list. He has no money, only debt. $65,000 on credit cards. What a leader.

WTF is wrong with some of you???

Now you criticize Sanders for NOT being a criminal on the take??? Because you'd much rather elect a leader who is cheating the system and yourselves in the process???

I just don't get it. You are shown proof of criminal activity that directly effects your own lives and shows how you're being ripped off and you talk sh*t about the one guy who's been against it from the start and who is still telling you about it now. Meanwhile you sit there and laugh at HIM.

Well, let me just say that he's not laughing and neither should you be. Sanders is not the joke, you are.

Well Son, I guess you jumped the gun. I happen to like Bernie Sanders, I just dont WORSHIP him like some do. I also have a mind of my own, and fully disagree with some of his statements and ideologies. If you dont manage your own money properly how will you manage the money of over 300 million..........

a reply to: visitedbythem

In August of 2015, Bernie Sanders reported net worth assets at a minimum of $187,026 and a max of $759,004. Sanders also owns a condominium in Vermont valued at about $100,000. He has debts of at least $25,002 and as much as $65,000.
Link

Seems that Bernie is doing just fine. It shows that with what he makes, which isn't much really, but decent, he lives off his salary like the average American does. Most importantly though, it shows he's not taking any "pay off money" from those who'd like to buy a politician.

I'm glad you like Sanders as you say, although it doesn't seem that way IMO. I don't worship him either and I am somewhat nervous about some of his economics he's got planned. However, by judging by his history and what he's done I have no choice but to assume he knows what he's doing. What else can anyone do after all???

I will take your word. And i agree, what can you do? I cant stand Trumps agressive attacks on others, or Hillarys lies and deceptions. Lyin Ted is another one... LMAO

That said...... I am a capitolist, and i work very hard for my money, in the steel business. I have been elgible to vote and have done so for the last 41 years. This year I may abstain and not place a vote. If so That will be my statement.
What i like about Bernie is that he is mature. He doesnt act like a little child and attack others. He probably had a pretty good mom