When it comes to understanding the underworld of corruption and criminality, you can’t just look at the rich crooks. You also have to look at the lawyers who help them dot the i’s and cross the t’s as they try to stash their illicit cash somewhere offshore. And to accomplish that goal, you have to understand the world of shell companies, corporate entities that often exist only on paper to shield vast sums of wealth from the taxman or the prying eyes of journalists.

 

It’s a dangerous world, and it has led to the assassination of at least one journalist who tried to expose the secrets of the world’s super rich.

 

In this episode, we speak to the two journalists who broke the Panama Papers – the largest leak of offshore documents in the history of illicit finance. They walk us through the world they uncovered at Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama, that helped set up some of the world’s shadiest shell companies for some of the world’s shadiest people.

 

Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier (who are not related) took immense personal risks to blow the story wide open.  They tell us how they did it – and what secrets they uncovered about the ways the world’s richest people make up their own rules.

 

For further information about the Panama Papers, go here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/

 

And for the Daphne Project, visit this site:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/the-daphne-project

 

Pre order Brian's book - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097 

 

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts