PANAMA CITY (AP) — The public part of a trial of more than two dozen associates accused of helping some of the world’s richest people hide their wealth came to an unexpectedly quick conclusion Friday when a Panamanian judge said she should would take a two-week sentence. trial arguments and testimonies under advice.
The trial came eight years after 11 million leaked secret financial documents, which became known as the ‘Panama Papers’, prompted the resignation of Iceland’s prime minister and the then leaders of Argentina and Ukraine, Chinese politicians and the Russian president under the loupe names. Vladimir Putinamong other things.
Judge Baloisa Marquínez noted Friday that the case contained more than 530 volumes of information. The public trial was expected to last until the end of the month. The judge has thirty working days to make a ruling.
Suspects include the owners of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which was at the heart of the massive document leak in 2016. According to his counsel, Jürgen Mossack was present at the trial, while his partner Ramón Fonseca was not present for health reasons.
Panamanian prosecutors allege that Mossack, Fonseca and their associates created a web of shell companies that used complex transactions to hide money linked to illegal activities in Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht’s “car wash” corruption scandal.
“This whole process from eight years ago to now … has had a lot of consequences for my family and my personal situation and has really been a great injustice, not only for me, but for all the people who have worked with me,” Mossack said. testified Friday. “I trust your honor knows how to evaluate everything that has been said here.”
Mossack had said at the start of the trial, as he has done for years, that he was not guilty of money laundering.
According to Panamanian prosecutors, the Mossack Fonseca firm set up 44 shell companies, 31 of which opened accounts in Panama to hide money linked to the Brazilian scandal.
Fonseca has said the company, which closed in 2018, had no control over how its customers might use offshore vehicles made for them.
Mossack Fonseca helped create and sell approximately 240,000 shell companies over the past four decades. It announced its closure in March 2018, two years after the scandal broke.
The company’s documents were first leaked to the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which began publishing joint reports with news organizations in 2016.
“The reputational damage, the media campaign, the financial siege and the irregular actions of some Panamanian authorities have caused irreparable damage, the consequence of which is the complete cessation of operations to the public,” the company said in a statement at the time.
The Mossack and Fonseca were acquitted of other charges in 2022.
