THE PANAMA PAPERS
Breaking the story of how the rich and powerful hide their money
Bastian Obermayer & Frederik Obermaier
One World
366 pages; Rs 499
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An internationally famed cellist, also the best friend of a ruthless politician, serving as the clandestine owner of shady companies that help the elite in his country siphon away public funds; corrupt officials selling off broadcasting rights for major sporting events to a private media company for a pittance; a "banana republic" in Central America offering a tax haven; and at the centre of it, the mysterious son of a former Waffen-SS officer assisting drug lords, gun runners and autocrats conceal their ill-gotten wealth... Sounds like the plot of an Alistair McLean pot boiler?
On the contrary: It's the true story of the greatest data leak ever. And, the international journalists who dug through the unimaginable mountains of data to focus the light of day on a shadow financial system that aids the rich and powerful conceal their wealth, and maintain the status quo of inequality. Now, the world knows of the leak as "Panama Papers" - the 1.5 million documents of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, or Mossfon. For nearly four decades since its establishment in 1977, the company has done business with some of the mostly reprehensible characters in the world, directly or through intermediaries, often in brazen disregard of laws and ignoring international sanctions. They are yet to be brought to book, and as of now, we know only a small percentage of their total alleged misdeeds. This book is a beginning.
It begins, true to the genre of investigative journalism, like a crime fiction. An investigative journalist, Bastian Obermayer of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), getting an anonymous message: "Interested in data? I'm happy to share." Mr Obermayer's reaction is almost instinctive: "Secret data is always good news." But, sources, especially anonymous ones, as all journalists know, can be painfully unreliable. (The source of the Mossack Fonseca leaks is still unknown.) Mr Obermayer moves with caution: Soon enough, the data starts flowing in, steadily, at first a trickle, but soon a tornado, sweeping away the scepticism of the journalists at SZ, sucking them into a vortex of revelations about the who's who of our contemporary times.
The writers, known as Obermayer/Obermaier brothers by their colleagues, make an important point about data journalism: "The advantage of data is that it's not self-important or verbose. It doesn't have a mission and it isn't looking to deceive you. It's simply there, and you can check it." That's what they do: Due-diligence. But this is not just another leak; it is the biggest ever: "It turns out... bigger than any [sic] journalist has ever seen." In their now famous association with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, more than 400 journalists from 80 countries - including The Indian Express, here - collaborate to make sense of the digital mountains and mines that they are provided access to. To use a metaphor common to this book's writers, they go diving frequently in this treasure trove and emerge with one interesting story after another.
For instance, Sergei Roldugin, the cellist with whom I began my review. One of Vladimir Putin's closest friends, he has known the Russian president since the 1970s. He is also one of the owners of Rossiya Bank, which has been on a US sanctions list since Russia seized Crimea last year. According to the documents, Mossack Fonseca has been doing business with the bank, breaching the sanctions.
Another story, a tragic one, revolves around Amedeo Modigliani's million-dollar rare painting Seated Man with a Cane. It was originally the possession of Jewish art collector, Oscar Stettiner, and seized and auctioned off by the Nazis when Germany occupied parts of France during World War II. Then, like much of stolen art, it disappeared before resurfacing at a Christie's auction in 1996, valued at $3.2 million. Stettiner's heir Phillippe Maesreacci claimed the painting and filed a case against the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York, only to be told that the painting did not belong to the gallery but to a Panamanian company, International Art Centre (IAC). After the Mossack Fonseca leak, it turns out, the IAC is owned by one Giuseppe Nahmad, the uncle of Helly Nahmad. Legally, there is little the claimants can do.
The only problem with the book - written in crisp, journalistic prose - is that stories like this come thick and fast. But this also gives a taste of what the journalists themselves experienced while processing all the data. The readers are provided a glimpse of cutting edge data processing tools and the methods of the experts. One wishes there was more of this in the book. Incidentally, the team of investigative journalists named their project Prometheus, after the space ship in Star Trek. It is also, as most will recall, the name of the Greek Titan who stole the secret of fire from the gods and gave it to the humans. It is an apt name: For what are whistle blowers and journalists but contemporary Prometheans?
