May 3, 2022 • 43 mins
You've probably heard of shell companies, tax havens and offshore trusts. But how common are they? How many people use these techniques as a way to squirrel away money from the prying eyes of taxpayers, governments and non-billionaires? What exactly did these Panama Papers reveal?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it is true that very wealthy, powerful people get
up to some very unethical things. And unfortunately, it's also
true that when these um activities make it into public
sphere media, they make a big pop for like what
(00:22):
what would you guys say, a week? About a week?
Almost exactly one week. That's because, like you know, I mean,
I remember even when this story was was popping, like
you say, a big part of it was just how
much paper was involved, and like it was all these
journalists kind of patting themselves on the back for having
sifted through and read it all like could for us,
(00:43):
we read a bunch of boring documents to pull up
the juicy bits, but hey, we need those people, because
boy were their juicy bits in the Panama papers. The
craziest thing about the story, guys, is that it's legal
to move your money offshore the way many of these
billionaires are doing, as long as you're paying taxes on
relevant stuff right in relevant places where taxes are due. Uh.
(01:07):
But often that doesn't occur, and that's why it's a story,
because it's evading the the required payments to a government.
Uh yeah, And we did this episode years ago, and
every time tax season comes around in the United States.
I I send some angry text to our crew saying, hey,
(01:27):
we need to talk about wealthy people and taxes. I've
had it up to here and that's just because I'm
a cheap skate. But they're getting they're getting away with this. Uh,
they being you know what you would consider the one
percent to the point one percent and it's legal. And uh,
we are putting this classic out because we don't think
(01:49):
this is a story that should disappear in a week. Agreed.
But in the meantime, hey, check out Panama. Are you
a millionaire needs to send money somewhere? Just send it
to Panama. It's fine, no one is looking of those
accounts you like. Al Right, it sounds really about It's
Friday for us. We're a little punchy. I hope you
(02:11):
enjoyed the episode. From UFOs to Psychic Powers and government Conspiracies.
History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
(02:34):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am then you are you
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know?
And today, folks, we are diving into something that's that's
more recent than we would often cover. And think of
it this way. Imagine that there's a crowded intersection and
(02:56):
auto intersection the biggest in the world, and right now
there's an enormous accident. Cars are blowing up and derailing,
flying off the median, and now we as stuff then
what you do know? So you and Matt Nolan I
have decided to stumble into this accident while it's occurring
(03:18):
to see what's going on today we're talking about the
Panama papers, which means we need to do a disclaimer
at the beginning. Yeah, this is an ongoing story. I
mean we've and by we I mean you know, the
information that's out there barely is even beginning to scratch
the surface on this um. So they're going to be
new details that are going to be constantly coming out
(03:39):
as this develops. And this is definitely the kind of
story that we will continue to follow up on for sure.
Right so by the time you're hearing this, you may
already know some things that happened after we record it,
and we'll we'll talk about that a little bit as well.
Keep seeing new things every day, every hour you know,
something new pops up as we were going into the studio.
(04:01):
We were we were adding to our notes here. But
what's what's the GISs here? Okay? So this month that
we were recording this podcast, A that's correct, a group
of journalists revealed that the largest leak in human history
has occurred. And we're talking about eleven and a half
million files that are looking at uh, secretive financial arrangements
(04:26):
that have been occurring since the nineteen seventies all the
way up until this past year. And and it's this
thing that we've all decided to call the Panama Papers.
And this is these are digital files. This is two
point six terabytes of data. So think about the size
of a word document on your computer. It's a couple
(04:47):
of k you know, it's barely a megabyte most of
the time. So to think about two point six terabytes
of basically text, that's insane. It is the German papers.
Sue Deutsch Tongu which I may be mispronouncing. Received this
information more than a year beforehand from an anonymous source
identifying his or herself in a burst of creativity as
(05:10):
John Doe. Yeah, it's an old standby. Don't fix it
if it ain't broken. So this German paper, one of
the things we found is that in the course of
our investigation, ironically enough, while we're investigating this big exposure
of secrets, we're finding a bunch of other things that
are also murky, unexplained or still secret. One of them,
(05:31):
of course being the identity of John Doe. Another being
the timeline because on their official record they'll only say
they received it more than a year ago exactly, and
they have to have that sort of ambiguity, perhaps to
protect this John Doe character. But anyway, when this German
paper realized the scope of the league, as as Noel said,
(05:52):
uh terabytes of data, they knew they had to ask
for help. So they contacted a place called the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and soon reporters around the globe.
We're digging into these dirty documents. But it should be
noted here that, uh, they are only releasing a small
amount of the data that they received. Right the Glenn
(06:14):
Greenwald Edward Snowden approach, which is to not do a
massive data dump that can be ignored after a news cycle,
but to continually feed things. And of course, you know
the people who don't want that kind of information to
be known, have adapted the way they do a news
cycle to cyclically ignore the new things or find something
(06:35):
else to have the spotlight. Yeah, some other breaking news
that comes in and now this is the big important thing,
And a lot of people may even say that that's
what the Panama Papers are. But we'll get to that later.
So what we already know about the Panama Papers um
includes definitely some of these kind of more let's say,
gossipy kind of details that people definitely get interested in.
(06:57):
And it's pretty good clickbait material because it involves the
super rich and their attempts successful attempts to cover up
uh parts of their wealth in order to avoid paying taxes,
right in a way that many people would not normally understand. Like,
it's tough to get your hands around some of these
(07:19):
more abstract concepts, but hopefully we can help shed some
light on it. The next question with the Panama Papers is, well,
where did all this stuff come from? Hey, guys, you
might be saying to yourself, I can just rack up
over two terabytes of nonsense and email it to somebody.
They're not that special. Uh. The origin of this information
(07:42):
which does appear to be true. UH is rooted in
a place that gives credibility and profoundly disturbing credibility to
the claims. We're talking about a law firm named Massak Fonseka.
This is a Panamanian law firm, Panama Papers. There we
go UH in their prime very business since nineteen seventy
seven has been to create offshore corporate entities organizational structure
(08:07):
shell companies for clients around the globe. At one point
they have more than three hundred thousands. But for a
long time we didn't know the specifics of their business
or their clients because this kind of stuff offshore organizational structures,
the stuff hinges on privacy. It's like how all the
cool clubs are never and yelp or they're never on
(08:29):
social media. You just have to find the right door
in the right alley. Yeah, privacy is the the whole
reason that that company really even exists is to maintain
privacy for individuals and corporations. So so what are these
Panama Papers specifically? Know that you talked about terabytes? Right, Yeah,
so it's two point six terabytes of data. Um that
(08:51):
includes details of around two sixteen thousand most like FINESSKA clients.
And again these clients are you know, heavy hitters politics
in the entertainment world, UM, business people, the athletes, very
affluent people who are known UM and we'll get to
who some of those people are in a bit. But
some of these details include techniques that are actually used
(09:15):
to establish these shell companies, UM, the amounts of money
that have been you know, tucked away, names, dates, owners.
Often people are actually linked to someone who controls the money.
So someone will do it on behalf of a client,
a proxy, and in a case that we'll talk about
a little later, could be a family member someone that's
you know, setting up the shell company. But you know
(09:37):
this is are these are terms I'm sure you've heard
in you know, heist movies or gangster movies and a
lot of times associated with UM even even going so
far as to call it laundering money, right like a
zip funds if it would be deposited in and unmocked
this bank account under the name Global Plumber, Global Plumber,
(09:59):
not somebody use that and then messed up on you die.
So some of these terms we are somewhat familiar with,
like you said, because we have we live in a
pop culture world. And we you know, there's a lot
of corruption to go around, so we write stories about it. Um,
so let's just describe what it is. Yeah, what is
(10:20):
this stuff actually? So all of this is, like you said,
all it's tax avoidance. That's at the heart of that,
at the heart of this, that's what it is. Um.
The usage of tax haven's and shell companies to reduce
the amount that you're going to have to pay when
you make income as a corporation or as an individual. UM.
Now here, here's the way they do that. They go offshore,
(10:42):
so in another country, in another state, even if you're
in the US or another country that has separate states
or localities. UM. It's really interesting how all these different
laws and rules are written because it will change. You go,
you know, a couple hundred miles and you're all laws
are different. So what exactly is a tax haven? So
(11:13):
there's several different examples of tax havens, one being countries
or different states that actually have financial secrecy laws in
place which allow them to attract investment from outside of
their borders. And I think the important distinction here with
this is that these activities are not illegal in the
places where they are being carried out the way it
(11:34):
connects to our country and our laws is a different
story entirely sure, And that's a great point. We can
take it a step further. Shell companies themselves are not
inherently illegal, you know what I mean. It's like using
tour is not inherently illegal. So far that's how you
use it, right. Um, So there are some great examples
(11:56):
of of tax havens. We're talking a lot of islands,
a lot of a Caitian destinations, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands,
the British version, Virgin Islands. Wait, wait, great examples or like,
oh yeah, I guess they are great. I mean they're
great examples if you wanna, you know, park your yacht
somewhere like textbook examples, textbook example. Um, we're talking to
(12:18):
Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Singapore, Ireland, even some U S States
like we mentioned before, like Wyoming, Nevada, and even Delaware, Delaware.
You guys remember that from Wayne's World. I'm in New York,
I got a gun. Let's go to a Broadway showing. Yeah,
(12:40):
this is just a quick, quick little side note. Delaware
has been fascinated to me because I know for years
you get these bills from back of America or whatever,
and it's always from Delaware. As it turns out, there's
a very good reason for that. Delaware has some interesting
laws that and and possibly from an article in the
New York Times, Delaware actually just has some slightly unusual
(13:01):
malleable shall we say, tax laws. And consequently, uh, there
is one particular address there's referenced in this article. That's
twelve or nine North Orange, Delaware, that two five thousand
separate businesses use and it's basically just a giant array
of mailboxes. Wow. So anyway I heard about this place. Yeah,
and it's just to maintain a business address and fall
(13:24):
under that legal jurisdiction, right exactly. So there are some
stats from the Federation of State Public Interest Research Groups
that we would like to explore at the moment. Yes,
this is from October, and they hold that fortune five
companies together are holding more than two point one trillion
(13:47):
dollars in profits off off shores for for these tax
purposes to try and save money on them. And at
least three hundred and fifty eight of those companies, nearly
seventy of the fortune operate these different subsidiaries and tax
havens to do just that, and they hold that these
(14:07):
same companies maintain at least seven thousand, six hundred and
twenty two tax haven subsidiaries or these things we're calling
show companies. All right, and let's let's take a second
right there, just to summit all a t l d R.
What these papers shows that people who have an extraordinary
amount of money. I don't wanna. I think we're dwelling
(14:32):
a lot on the tax thing. Because it's not just taxation.
It's not just taxation. We're also talking about criminal activities,
ill gotten gains. We're talking about corruption and bribery. It's
money you want to hide, not money you want to
take home to meet your parents. And it could fall
under the idea of money laundering. Yes, yes, it's almost
(14:53):
to me, I was thinking about it as let's say,
let's just say, for instance, I'm gonna make a purchase
that I don't want to show up on my on
my credit card or something like that. Pull a little
bit of cash out, and I'll go and make whatever
purchase or transition to do that in cash. To me,
this is almost like that for a massive corporation or
(15:15):
an individual that has a whole bunch of money, so
you can siphon a little bit out of that account
that is under somebody else's name and then use that
for whatever thing you're gonna do. It doesn't necessarily mean
that it's illegal. It just means that you don't want
anybody else to know about it. Okay, So that's that's
a good way to put it in a shell company,
you know, a shell company. Like you said, Noell is
(15:37):
one of the one of the favored ways to launder money. Right.
In a sense, it's more abstract, more corporatized version of
the old trope in crime movies where let's let's say, uh,
Noel is quickly becoming like a cocaine kingpin or something,
(15:57):
and then you're shady underworld account and says, well, you've
got to buy a laundromat or nail slaw and a deli, right,
or just the p O box in Delaware? Also true, Yeah,
but deli would be so much fun. He's a question,
and this is really I'm asking, um, isn't this sort
of just like a slightly lower level version of the
(16:20):
way huge corporations sometimes restructure like alphabet for example in Google,
Like is that is there any connection there at all.
I know it's definitely for not tax reasons, but it's
it's regulatory reasons maybe, I mean, or is there a
connection there or just it's a it's a similar operation
in many ways. Yeah. The the difference I would say
(16:42):
is that when you have a restructuring like that, you're
gonna have operating procedures that function under this new thing
that you create, umbrella. There are operating procedures that happened
with Alphabet. With some of these, it would be just
a like That's why it's called a shell because it
just kind of sits there, doesn't really do anything. It's
like a front it is. It's very much like a
(17:02):
front company. The first thing we need to know is
what a front company is. And Ben, we've talked about
this before, uh in our video series a couple of
times about different versions of front companies. UM. It can
be UH subsidiary, it can be a shell company. UH.
It's usually from a larger company that almost always wants
to hide some bit of information about a company or
(17:25):
an individual, and usually it's used to protect them from liability.
Let's say, is something that the company does, they want
to protect the owners or again the individual UM. And
that's from anything of any kind of scrutiny, even negative press.
You just don't want somebody to see it. Do it
in a front company. Let's say you get caught messing
with your stockholders or something like that. Then maybe all
(17:47):
it takes to make some of that go away is
to change the name of your company and be out
of the public eye for a little while exactly. And
again we're gonna stay here. It is not out and
out illegal to own or operate, quote operate a front
company in most countries. In most countries. So another example
is shell corporations and a lot of this stuff. I
(18:08):
know it's very closely related, but it's I think if
there's some little distinctions that are important. A shell corporation
can be described as a corporation that doesn't necessarily have
active business operations or really any money. Doesn't it doesn't
really do anything. And these are commonly formed when you're
in the process of starting corporation UM. It's sort of
as a formality to get the initial financing UM. And
(18:30):
then they can also be used in tax avoidance schemes
by legitimate businesses UM, which is not not legal, right, Yeah,
that part would not be legal. But again the whole
I mean, we just I want to keep saying this
because it's just kind of get it in your head, like,
this is not in itself illegal to have a shell corporation.
It's right right on board if you're doing if you're
(18:52):
using it for legal purposes, right. Yeah. Another example, which
probably has the more enjoyable name of these three that
were mentioned, is the dummy corporation. A dummy corporation appears
to be a functioning thing. Global Plumbing is a shell corporation.
(19:13):
If Global Plumbing has no assets, has no owner, does nothing,
a dummy corporation. Global Plumbing is a dummy corporation if
it appears to be real, you know, if it seems
to have the signs of an active company. Yeah, there's
the cred maybe their books there on the books, yeah,
but in actuality, it doesn't have the ability to function
(19:36):
by itself exactly. And we have We've put a playlist
on our YouTube page so you can go through show
your friends and your family, like, hey, this is what
a friend company is and how it works, just so
you can get everybody on the same page. If you
want to have a conversation about this, um you know,
maybe you don't want to talk about this with your family,
but you know it might be a good idea. So
(19:57):
let's name some names. If you are listening to this show,
odds are that you have already heard of the Prime
Minister of Iceland who went on leave as of the
seventh of April twenty sixteen. Uh no news, yet they
held emergency like elections, right recall of some kind yep.
(20:20):
And this also affects heads of state like the President
of Argentina, King Salomon of Saudi Arabia, the President of
the u a E, President of Ukraine, Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of the United Kingdah, Prime
Minister of Pakistan, even Prime Minister of Jordan's, Prime Minister
(20:40):
of Moldolva Iraq, Italy Cutter. The list goes on, and
then numerous other government officials. And another thing that we
see is that celebrities we're named as well. Jackie Chan
is in there, of all people, Andrew Elmotive of are
the director. Apparently this his was set up by his
(21:04):
brother in the nineties and has has been closed. But
the fact that that is even in there shows you
how far back this information goes and how exacting and
precise it is. Um, he did you know women on
the vergement of his breakdown and um he's still active,
but he apparently took up took a leave of his
press tour when this information drapped. And it's you know,
(21:25):
the thing about it is too that we're going to
get to um just a bit is it's not necessarily
always prosecutable or like like directly illegal. A lot of
it has to do with just it's kind of kind
of a crappy thing to do. It's kind of the
way the game is played. Yes, and a lot of
you listening, a lot of us already know that this
is how the game is played, right, but some of
(21:47):
this is coming as a real shock to others. Well,
the it's the difference between suspecting somewhat of a crime
and seeing it conducted. Because make no mistake, however, this
is spun. You should surprise no one that FIFA, for instances,
just riddled with corruption. However, in this case, this stuff
(22:09):
goes further because in addition to the heads of states,
the celebrities, the aristocrats that are named, and there's a
heck of event diagram there, there's also uh, they're organized
criminals Manthiosa's bank robbers hiding uh, millions of pounds of money.
Pound the denomination of the not not like a physical
(22:31):
pound of money. You know, we're we're also seeing one
of the tropes that we see in pop culture where
you'll some rich person will give money in their relatives name.
We're seeing tons of relatives of highly influential, ridiculously wealthy people.
And we'll get into the crimes that are the crimes
their associated what crimes may or may not exist. After
(22:53):
a brief word from our sponsor, Yeah, here's where it
gets crazy. So what what crimes exist? I don't know
(23:18):
why I sounded a little woody Allen there, but what
what crimes actually occurred? Because we know what most Fonseka said, Yes,
we know Roman Fonseca, who is the co founder of
most Fonseca. He came forward and said the company hasn't
done any wrongdoing, just completely denied that they've done anything wrong.
They just set up these offshore financial accounts with these
(23:38):
anonymous shell companies for clients. And look, we're not involved
in how they use these things once we set them up.
Even when so far as to say the only crime
associated with the Panama papers at all. Was the hack
of acting of their servers itself. Yeah, and there's an
interesting idea there too, because if we're being if we're
objectively approaching that kind of statement, then it leads to
(24:02):
another question. Should a gun manufacturer, a bullet manufacturer be
held responsible for deaths that happened as a result of crime.
Should auto manufacturers be held responsible for deaths or crimes
that occur in the course of using something they built?
Obviously this is in the scope of our show really
(24:23):
or the episode, but I mean auto manufacturers are held
responsible when it's a malfunction or negligence on their part. Um.
The gun argument is a fascinating one, but it tends
to come up. It seems like no as long as
they're doing everything in their power to make their weapons
traceable and you know, able to be pinned to a crime.
(24:43):
And I'm glad you brought that up, because if we
can look at that car example as well, You're absolutely right.
If there is a defect inherent in the product they create,
then they then and only then are they liable. It's
completely fine to build a car that goes two hundred
miles and hour even though that's illegal everywhere in like
(25:06):
on every public road. Well, they're probably a few where
it's not. You don't often hear about death resulting from
malfunctions of firearms. Usually the death result from them working
exactly as advertising. They're human error yet, and that applies
as well to the kinds of services that this firm provided. Right,
these services are working. This is this was a huge
(25:26):
firm and they were doing well. Would assume what they
were designed to do. You don't get hundreds of thousands
of clients by making dud. Yeah, since the nine seventies
and they were still functioning successfully. And I do think
I will say to Knowle's point that I found it,
uh somewhere between delicious, disgusting and hilarious when people like
(25:50):
the Prime Minister of the UK, Cameron, come out and say, well,
you know, now, privacy is important, especially considering the UK
has the highest the highest density of closed circuit televisions
in the world per kilometer, and and it's also the
population the UK is one of the most closely and
continually surveiled on the planet. Dude, Yeah, I get that
(26:14):
same feeling when you read this. Another quote from the
same du the co founder of and he says, quote
when he's and this is referring to the hack on
this company. Quote, this is a crime, a felony. Privacy
is a fundamental human right that is being eroded more
and more in the modern world. Each person has a
(26:35):
right to privacy, whether they are king or a baker
clutching the pearls noble argument. Let's go into this king
or beggar argument, because one thing that pops out to
me as guys like David Cameron, you know who are
meant to be looking out for the little guy in theory.
You know your politician, you're supposed to represent, you know
your people, all of your people. Then it turns out
(26:57):
that you're cheating. The system doesn't come off so well,
doesn't look very good. Guys. It was only thirty thousand
pounds come on of what gold thousand pounds of jelly
pounds sterling pounds. So there's there's another thing there now
(27:17):
that we have hopefully outlined for you what this stuff
indicates and why it's important and giving you a look
at the level of money we're talking about. Let's flip
it and look at the other side. Because there are
numerous people who believe that there's more to the Panama
(27:39):
papers than you have been told or than journalists are releasing.
And for instance, it all goes back to the same
question motive. Who leaked the papers and why? So, like,
what what do we know about this John Doe guy?
Not a whole lot at this point, which makes sense
considering how fresh the story is and how bloody much
information there is in these in the star. So the
(28:00):
anonymous whistleblower who contacted the German Newslaver we talked about
the top of the show more than a year ago,
had some pretty interesting claims. I'm in here are a
few of them. John Doe didn't want any financial conversation
for exposing this info. That's very telling. Um. Also, I
didn't want to be known. I wanted to remain anonymous,
no direct contact with the investigators. We can kind of
(28:21):
see why that makes sense from looking at Snowden Wiki
leaks all these other things. Did not want to be
exiled from the land. Um. The source also said their
life would be endangered by any exposure, which definitely rings true. Um.
Considering the powerful people involved in these kinds of deals,
you're basically shining a light in a place where you know.
(28:43):
I mean, you know, even like the most upstanding people
on this list certainly wouldn't want this information out there.
But as we know, talking about the whole idea of
hiding criminal enterprises, you could certainly put a target on
your back by by being out there, you know, in
the in public um. Also, this individual claimed this was
a moral imperative, like most ex clients were doing harm
(29:08):
to the world and had to be stopped. So here
we are with an anonymous source does not say how
they acquired documents, where they come from, and supplies his
motivation only that they feel it is the right thing
to do. Again, how noble, how forthright, how Edwards snowed
(29:30):
in of him. See, I I'm so torn here because
I I want to believe that story, that somebody just
got it in themselves that this is the morally correct
thing to do. These are people that I believe are
doing harm. So I'm going to show the world, or
at least in this case, a group of journalists going
to show them this and hopefully they will report it
(29:52):
the way it should be reported. Well, that's definitely what
they said, right, That's what they said, and I want
to believe that, But it's just it's it's tough when
you don't have somebody like in Edward Snowden to put
a picture in your head of who this is, to
actually come out and say these things. You just have
it written down or told to you exactly, which gives
rise to one of the more popular, or for some
(30:16):
more fascinating, intriguing conspiracy theories already surrounding the Panama Papers.
Just for a note for those following the structure and
asking who are the they in the Panama Papers, Well,
the definite they would be the hundreds of thousands of
clients who didn't want people to know that their money
was in the Virgin Islands. However, there's more than one
(30:38):
they in this show, ladies and gentlemen, because they, being
John Doe, don't want you to know who he or
she is, or if it's one person, and this leads
to another, this leads to a conspiracy theory hot off
the presses once the Panama Papers came out. Allegations uh
(30:58):
that John Doe was somehow related to the US or
another state level actor. Oh, British Version Islands, not Virgin Islands.
British Virgin Islands. Slightly slightly different, Okay, but but what's
what's this story about possible state level involvement. Well, we've
heard just tons and tons of theories coming out ideas
(31:22):
about who this may or may not be, everything from
UH intelligence in Britain to intelligence in the US or
I've even heard Australia maybe involved. So let's let's focus
on one. A man named Bradley Berkenfeld. So he's this
American banker who was working at UBS, a financial institution
(31:44):
that Ben and I have spoken about before. We made
a video about that, talking about it was the most
money any bank had been charged. They're fine, Yeah, the
fine that they had to pay back in the day.
And I think this is around the time when he
was blowing the whistle on them. This is in two
thousand nine. So he he disclosed to the U. S.
Government this massive tax of Asian scheme that was going
(32:06):
on by Americans in Switzerland using these secret accounts. Now,
he was awarded a hundred and four million dollars by
the I R. S Whistleblower Office for his efforts in
doing this. He also got to spend two years in
a federal prison here in the States. Why, well, uh,
(32:27):
because I guess he was he was implicated in it,
and he was also doing something that is frowned upon me. Okay,
and so what does he believe happen with the Panama papers. Well,
he points his finger towards the good old Central Intelligence
Agency and he thinks they're behind it, because he says
(32:47):
these leaks have impacted mostly countries with tense relationships with
the United States. Although at this point listeners, some of
some of us will doubtlessly remember that a cord into
some of the latest analysis, we've been able to find
intermediaries of the CIA did work with this company, but
(33:08):
not We don't have any hard proof of CIA involved, true,
no hard proof, But we also know that the CIA
itself is pretty fond of using front companies, right ben
spy spy agencies in general. So I s I massad
all of my five and my six, So that I
mean yeah, but that that in itself is the real
(33:30):
is one of the big reasons that people look at
this and kind of their eye twitches because they are
aware of these facts. Um So. Mr Birkenfeld also has
said that he thinks David Cameron was something unfortunate collateral
damage in this league, and he also stated that, oh,
Oh this, the company Massac Fonseca was just one tiny
(33:53):
part in a vast offshore maze that's used by bankers
and lawyers to hide money from taxipotily that I have
no doubt in my mind that that's the case. Sure, yeah,
this brings us to some some other things, some consequences,
some conclusions, some current developments, almost a colorful developments. And
(34:15):
you know, I guess that would work. No earlier you
had mentioned to us at the top of the show
that just as we were going in, uh, some s
was starting to hit the f which I know that
just sounds weird. Let's say something different. The badgers were
hitting the bag. No, the badgers were biting the bat.
(34:35):
The badgers were biding the bat. The badgers began to
bite the bat as we were walking in. What happened?
What's this new news story? Yeah, so the headquarters of
Mussak Fonseca were actually rated by the Panamanian police yesterday
April the twelve, yesterday recording this and you know you
know about this right, Oh yeah, a little bit. They're
(34:57):
they're searching for evidence of any kind of money laundering
and documents anything about the financing of terrorism, which we
have not mentioned, but it seems like a really big
concern in the right. Yeah, this is a huge concern
in this Yeah, that house of sodd money exactly. And
and the police officers that are doing this are part
(35:19):
of an organized crime unit, so they they know about
all this money laundry. I guess that's part of their specialty.
They're also looking at several subsidiaries of the firm at
a even a computer support center which may hold documents there, right,
files of different illegal activities that did not somehow get
connected or collected in that initial suite. And the big
(35:43):
buzz around our conspiracy at least is that are they
going to destroy documents when they find them because they're
corrupt in any way or working together with you know,
the heads of state. That that's the subredit our conspiracy.
Oh are you yes? Read it? Yeah? That that's fascinating
because it does lead us to believe multiple new stories
(36:08):
are going to be forthcoming within the next few days, weeks,
who knows how long. Multiple journalists have stated that more
stories are on the way, and again, this is just
so much stuff people are still analyzing it. So I
want to ask you, guys, what are the consequences if
(36:29):
any of this. Well, one thing is that countries are
being accused of censoring the information that's coming out about
this um too. I mean, for a lot of reasons,
but one of the main ones just to prevent citizens
inside their country from knowing about it. Because the less
the public knows about the heads of their state perhaps
or even their celebrities, the less they know about them
(36:51):
doing these nefarious things, allegedly nefarious things, the better. And thankfully,
we live in the age of you know, information being
up of our fingers, so it's a lot more difficult
for governments to keep information like this from people that
you know, know where to look, right. You know that's
a stupe because we've said this before on this show,
I believe. But back in let's see the forties or
(37:14):
the thirties or fifties, and the way you would blackout
an entire population, the way you would hide something is
just remove it. So if you had a needle you
didn't want people to see, you would just take the needle.
But now the methods have changed and the best way
to hide the needle is to surround it with a
bunch of other needles. I was doing a needle in
(37:35):
a haystack thing. But I got derailed somewhere along the way,
and now I'm just describing some sort of no your
heroin fans. You're totally right, man. It's a needle and
a needle stack. Now that's that's needle and a needle stack.
You save that one. Well, here's an example of that,
because if you recall, uh, recently, before this news hit
(37:58):
the press and became the you know, the thing that
everyone was focusing on, there was another scandal, another leak
and investigation into a company known as Una Oil right
the I believe vern based in Monaco, and they I
believe was Monico. If I am wrong on that, please
right in and let me get a correction on air.
(38:19):
What we found was that these this organization was brokering
corrupt deals for a lot of large corporate large companies
rather and conglomerates to get favorable business arrangements in a
lot of developing countries and practice resource extraction. But now
(38:40):
no one's really talking about that, So I don't know
if the timing works out. Since if this was indeed
more than a year in the making, it sounds like
the journalists are telling the truth. Then maybe it's just
a coincidence that you know, oil popped up and disappeared.
Maybe it is. I don't know, Ben. I think you're
right that this the un oil story was huge, and
(39:01):
we we were talking about it a lot just around
the office, and I feel like, I think maybe we
need to talk about it in more detail sometime in
the future, just so it doesn't go away, right, And
we want to hear from you. What are your opinions
on the Panama Papers. What part of the world do
you do you call home? What what do people your
(39:24):
neck of the Global woods think about the Panama Papers.
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. We'd love
to hear from you there. We are conspiracy stuff at
both of those And speaking of hearing from you, I
think it's time for shut at Conners. The first shout
(39:45):
out goes to Hannah f who wrote to us about
UFO sightings in Canada and a younger listener. Yes, I
I remember seeing thirteen and then like that's when she started,
when she was thirteen and as eighteen. Now, yeah, thanks
so much for Ryan Haneff. And we're checking the Canadian
UFO report pretty I don't know, we're going pretty hard
(40:07):
on the pain. It's so much fun. I like it. Uh.
And Gail Gerard writes into us and says, uh, she
listens to us while waiting in the caroline to pick
up her son from school. Well, Gail, we hope that
we're making you one of the cool moms. Oh, Gail,
come on, you're absolutely cool. Mom. Do you roll your
windows down when you're listening to everybody else that music
(40:30):
pops in. Finally, we have one from Taylor and who
sent us several personal stories about unusual and strange experiences
in national parks, as well as another explanation for the
disappearances UM, which was a secret space program that includes
moon bases created in the nineteen sixties. I'm not sure
(40:51):
about that one, but that's it's it's pretty great. He
he describes. It's not his theory. Uh. I don't know
if it's I can't remember if he said it was
someone in his family or a friend. But they described
in the nineteen sixties, we've been we've had people on
the moon, and we need people to work these sites
on the moon. So so they've been abducting people just
(41:13):
you know, Willie Nilly out in National parks. Adoption. This
is a good idea. All right, Well, Taylor and you
are attached officially as producer and co writer on that project.
That's the least we can do, right And one last
thing here before we take off. If any of you
are out there going hey guys, Matt Noel, then why
(41:34):
didn't you talk about the Americans and why they aren't
talked about in these papers? Well guess what? There are
some and what what I need you to do is
head over to zero heads dot com because they're they're
pretty good about giving links out to other places as well.
It's just a really good place to start. They name
names in there that are talked about, um specifically Americans,
(41:58):
parts of like the New York Global Group in or
in there, people in Bellevue, Washington. All kinds of people
are in there. Check it out and you'll find what
you're looking for. That is an excellent point, Matt, and
that is where we are going to end the show
to day for now, at least our part of it,
because now it's your part, folks listening. We want to
(42:21):
hear again where you're from, what people are saying about
this where you're at. Do people care? Do people not care?
Our websites blocked in in your country. If so, you know,
it occurs to me the podcast maybe one of the
few ways people are hearing about this, which is baffling
to think about, isn't it. Yeah, it is. So your
(42:42):
job keep tabs on this as you go forward, because
they're gonna be other big stories that pop in the front,
and know everyone will talk about those and this will
just go by the wayside. Keep tabs on it, you know,
maybe write a little note to yourself to look at
it in two months from now, just to see where
we're at, what other relations have come out. And that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
(43:05):
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three std w y t K.
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you
(43:26):
to Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
So it is true that very wealthy, powerful people get
up to some very unethical things. And unfortunately, it's also
true that when these um activities make it into public
sphere media, they make a big pop for like what
(00:22):
what would you guys say, a week? About a week?
Almost exactly one week. That's because, like you know, I mean,
I remember even when this story was was popping, like
you say, a big part of it was just how
much paper was involved, and like it was all these
journalists kind of patting themselves on the back for having
sifted through and read it all like could for us,
(00:43):
we read a bunch of boring documents to pull up
the juicy bits, but hey, we need those people, because
boy were their juicy bits in the Panama papers. The
craziest thing about the story, guys, is that it's legal
to move your money offshore the way many of these
billionaires are doing, as long as you're paying taxes on
relevant stuff right in relevant places where taxes are due. Uh.
(01:07):
But often that doesn't occur, and that's why it's a story,
because it's evading the the required payments to a government.
Uh yeah, And we did this episode years ago, and
every time tax season comes around in the United States.
I I send some angry text to our crew saying, hey,
(01:27):
we need to talk about wealthy people and taxes. I've
had it up to here and that's just because I'm
a cheap skate. But they're getting they're getting away with this. Uh,
they being you know what you would consider the one
percent to the point one percent and it's legal. And uh,
we are putting this classic out because we don't think
(01:49):
this is a story that should disappear in a week. Agreed.
But in the meantime, hey, check out Panama. Are you
a millionaire needs to send money somewhere? Just send it
to Panama. It's fine, no one is looking of those
accounts you like. Al Right, it sounds really about It's
Friday for us. We're a little punchy. I hope you
(02:11):
enjoyed the episode. From UFOs to Psychic Powers and government Conspiracies.
History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
(02:34):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel, and I am then you are you
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know?
And today, folks, we are diving into something that's that's
more recent than we would often cover. And think of
it this way. Imagine that there's a crowded intersection and
(02:56):
auto intersection the biggest in the world, and right now
there's an enormous accident. Cars are blowing up and derailing,
flying off the median, and now we as stuff then
what you do know? So you and Matt Nolan I
have decided to stumble into this accident while it's occurring
(03:18):
to see what's going on today we're talking about the
Panama papers, which means we need to do a disclaimer
at the beginning. Yeah, this is an ongoing story. I
mean we've and by we I mean you know, the
information that's out there barely is even beginning to scratch
the surface on this um. So they're going to be
new details that are going to be constantly coming out
(03:39):
as this develops. And this is definitely the kind of
story that we will continue to follow up on for sure.
Right so by the time you're hearing this, you may
already know some things that happened after we record it,
and we'll we'll talk about that a little bit as well.
Keep seeing new things every day, every hour you know,
something new pops up as we were going into the studio.
(04:01):
We were we were adding to our notes here. But
what's what's the GISs here? Okay? So this month that
we were recording this podcast, A that's correct, a group
of journalists revealed that the largest leak in human history
has occurred. And we're talking about eleven and a half
million files that are looking at uh, secretive financial arrangements
(04:26):
that have been occurring since the nineteen seventies all the
way up until this past year. And and it's this
thing that we've all decided to call the Panama Papers.
And this is these are digital files. This is two
point six terabytes of data. So think about the size
of a word document on your computer. It's a couple
(04:47):
of k you know, it's barely a megabyte most of
the time. So to think about two point six terabytes
of basically text, that's insane. It is the German papers.
Sue Deutsch Tongu which I may be mispronouncing. Received this
information more than a year beforehand from an anonymous source
identifying his or herself in a burst of creativity as
(05:10):
John Doe. Yeah, it's an old standby. Don't fix it
if it ain't broken. So this German paper, one of
the things we found is that in the course of
our investigation, ironically enough, while we're investigating this big exposure
of secrets, we're finding a bunch of other things that
are also murky, unexplained or still secret. One of them,
(05:31):
of course being the identity of John Doe. Another being
the timeline because on their official record they'll only say
they received it more than a year ago exactly, and
they have to have that sort of ambiguity, perhaps to
protect this John Doe character. But anyway, when this German
paper realized the scope of the league, as as Noel said,
(05:52):
uh terabytes of data, they knew they had to ask
for help. So they contacted a place called the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and soon reporters around the globe.
We're digging into these dirty documents. But it should be
noted here that, uh, they are only releasing a small
amount of the data that they received. Right the Glenn
(06:14):
Greenwald Edward Snowden approach, which is to not do a
massive data dump that can be ignored after a news cycle,
but to continually feed things. And of course, you know
the people who don't want that kind of information to
be known, have adapted the way they do a news
cycle to cyclically ignore the new things or find something
(06:35):
else to have the spotlight. Yeah, some other breaking news
that comes in and now this is the big important thing,
And a lot of people may even say that that's
what the Panama Papers are. But we'll get to that later.
So what we already know about the Panama Papers um
includes definitely some of these kind of more let's say,
gossipy kind of details that people definitely get interested in.
(06:57):
And it's pretty good clickbait material because it involves the
super rich and their attempts successful attempts to cover up
uh parts of their wealth in order to avoid paying taxes,
right in a way that many people would not normally understand. Like,
it's tough to get your hands around some of these
(07:19):
more abstract concepts, but hopefully we can help shed some
light on it. The next question with the Panama Papers is, well,
where did all this stuff come from? Hey, guys, you
might be saying to yourself, I can just rack up
over two terabytes of nonsense and email it to somebody.
They're not that special. Uh. The origin of this information
(07:42):
which does appear to be true. UH is rooted in
a place that gives credibility and profoundly disturbing credibility to
the claims. We're talking about a law firm named Massak Fonseka.
This is a Panamanian law firm, Panama Papers. There we
go UH in their prime very business since nineteen seventy
seven has been to create offshore corporate entities organizational structure
(08:07):
shell companies for clients around the globe. At one point
they have more than three hundred thousands. But for a
long time we didn't know the specifics of their business
or their clients because this kind of stuff offshore organizational structures,
the stuff hinges on privacy. It's like how all the
cool clubs are never and yelp or they're never on
(08:29):
social media. You just have to find the right door
in the right alley. Yeah, privacy is the the whole
reason that that company really even exists is to maintain
privacy for individuals and corporations. So so what are these
Panama Papers specifically? Know that you talked about terabytes? Right, Yeah,
so it's two point six terabytes of data. Um that
(08:51):
includes details of around two sixteen thousand most like FINESSKA clients.
And again these clients are you know, heavy hitters politics
in the entertainment world, UM, business people, the athletes, very
affluent people who are known UM and we'll get to
who some of those people are in a bit. But
some of these details include techniques that are actually used
(09:15):
to establish these shell companies, UM, the amounts of money
that have been you know, tucked away, names, dates, owners.
Often people are actually linked to someone who controls the money.
So someone will do it on behalf of a client,
a proxy, and in a case that we'll talk about
a little later, could be a family member someone that's
you know, setting up the shell company. But you know
(09:37):
this is are these are terms I'm sure you've heard
in you know, heist movies or gangster movies and a
lot of times associated with UM even even going so
far as to call it laundering money, right like a
zip funds if it would be deposited in and unmocked
this bank account under the name Global Plumber, Global Plumber,
(09:59):
not somebody use that and then messed up on you die.
So some of these terms we are somewhat familiar with,
like you said, because we have we live in a
pop culture world. And we you know, there's a lot
of corruption to go around, so we write stories about it. Um,
so let's just describe what it is. Yeah, what is
(10:20):
this stuff actually? So all of this is, like you said,
all it's tax avoidance. That's at the heart of that,
at the heart of this, that's what it is. Um.
The usage of tax haven's and shell companies to reduce
the amount that you're going to have to pay when
you make income as a corporation or as an individual. UM.
Now here, here's the way they do that. They go offshore,
(10:42):
so in another country, in another state, even if you're
in the US or another country that has separate states
or localities. UM. It's really interesting how all these different
laws and rules are written because it will change. You go,
you know, a couple hundred miles and you're all laws
are different. So what exactly is a tax haven? So
(11:13):
there's several different examples of tax havens, one being countries
or different states that actually have financial secrecy laws in
place which allow them to attract investment from outside of
their borders. And I think the important distinction here with
this is that these activities are not illegal in the
places where they are being carried out the way it
(11:34):
connects to our country and our laws is a different
story entirely sure, And that's a great point. We can
take it a step further. Shell companies themselves are not
inherently illegal, you know what I mean. It's like using
tour is not inherently illegal. So far that's how you
use it, right. Um, So there are some great examples
(11:56):
of of tax havens. We're talking a lot of islands,
a lot of a Caitian destinations, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands,
the British version, Virgin Islands. Wait, wait, great examples or like,
oh yeah, I guess they are great. I mean they're
great examples if you wanna, you know, park your yacht
somewhere like textbook examples, textbook example. Um, we're talking to
(12:18):
Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Singapore, Ireland, even some U S States
like we mentioned before, like Wyoming, Nevada, and even Delaware, Delaware.
You guys remember that from Wayne's World. I'm in New York,
I got a gun. Let's go to a Broadway showing. Yeah,
(12:40):
this is just a quick, quick little side note. Delaware
has been fascinated to me because I know for years
you get these bills from back of America or whatever,
and it's always from Delaware. As it turns out, there's
a very good reason for that. Delaware has some interesting
laws that and and possibly from an article in the
New York Times, Delaware actually just has some slightly unusual
(13:01):
malleable shall we say, tax laws. And consequently, uh, there
is one particular address there's referenced in this article. That's
twelve or nine North Orange, Delaware, that two five thousand
separate businesses use and it's basically just a giant array
of mailboxes. Wow. So anyway I heard about this place. Yeah,
and it's just to maintain a business address and fall
(13:24):
under that legal jurisdiction, right exactly. So there are some
stats from the Federation of State Public Interest Research Groups
that we would like to explore at the moment. Yes,
this is from October, and they hold that fortune five
companies together are holding more than two point one trillion
(13:47):
dollars in profits off off shores for for these tax
purposes to try and save money on them. And at
least three hundred and fifty eight of those companies, nearly
seventy of the fortune operate these different subsidiaries and tax
havens to do just that, and they hold that these
(14:07):
same companies maintain at least seven thousand, six hundred and
twenty two tax haven subsidiaries or these things we're calling
show companies. All right, and let's let's take a second
right there, just to summit all a t l d R.
What these papers shows that people who have an extraordinary
amount of money. I don't wanna. I think we're dwelling
(14:32):
a lot on the tax thing. Because it's not just taxation.
It's not just taxation. We're also talking about criminal activities,
ill gotten gains. We're talking about corruption and bribery. It's
money you want to hide, not money you want to
take home to meet your parents. And it could fall
under the idea of money laundering. Yes, yes, it's almost
(14:53):
to me, I was thinking about it as let's say,
let's just say, for instance, I'm gonna make a purchase
that I don't want to show up on my on
my credit card or something like that. Pull a little
bit of cash out, and I'll go and make whatever
purchase or transition to do that in cash. To me,
this is almost like that for a massive corporation or
(15:15):
an individual that has a whole bunch of money, so
you can siphon a little bit out of that account
that is under somebody else's name and then use that
for whatever thing you're gonna do. It doesn't necessarily mean
that it's illegal. It just means that you don't want
anybody else to know about it. Okay, So that's that's
a good way to put it in a shell company,
you know, a shell company. Like you said, Noell is
(15:37):
one of the one of the favored ways to launder money. Right.
In a sense, it's more abstract, more corporatized version of
the old trope in crime movies where let's let's say, uh,
Noel is quickly becoming like a cocaine kingpin or something,
(15:57):
and then you're shady underworld account and says, well, you've
got to buy a laundromat or nail slaw and a deli, right,
or just the p O box in Delaware? Also true, Yeah,
but deli would be so much fun. He's a question,
and this is really I'm asking, um, isn't this sort
of just like a slightly lower level version of the
(16:20):
way huge corporations sometimes restructure like alphabet for example in Google,
Like is that is there any connection there at all.
I know it's definitely for not tax reasons, but it's
it's regulatory reasons maybe, I mean, or is there a
connection there or just it's a it's a similar operation
in many ways. Yeah. The the difference I would say
(16:42):
is that when you have a restructuring like that, you're
gonna have operating procedures that function under this new thing
that you create, umbrella. There are operating procedures that happened
with Alphabet. With some of these, it would be just
a like That's why it's called a shell because it
just kind of sits there, doesn't really do anything. It's
like a front it is. It's very much like a
(17:02):
front company. The first thing we need to know is
what a front company is. And Ben, we've talked about
this before, uh in our video series a couple of
times about different versions of front companies. UM. It can
be UH subsidiary, it can be a shell company. UH.
It's usually from a larger company that almost always wants
to hide some bit of information about a company or
(17:25):
an individual, and usually it's used to protect them from liability.
Let's say, is something that the company does, they want
to protect the owners or again the individual UM. And
that's from anything of any kind of scrutiny, even negative press.
You just don't want somebody to see it. Do it
in a front company. Let's say you get caught messing
with your stockholders or something like that. Then maybe all
(17:47):
it takes to make some of that go away is
to change the name of your company and be out
of the public eye for a little while exactly. And
again we're gonna stay here. It is not out and
out illegal to own or operate, quote operate a front
company in most countries. In most countries. So another example
is shell corporations and a lot of this stuff. I
(18:08):
know it's very closely related, but it's I think if
there's some little distinctions that are important. A shell corporation
can be described as a corporation that doesn't necessarily have
active business operations or really any money. Doesn't it doesn't
really do anything. And these are commonly formed when you're
in the process of starting corporation UM. It's sort of
as a formality to get the initial financing UM. And
(18:30):
then they can also be used in tax avoidance schemes
by legitimate businesses UM, which is not not legal, right, Yeah,
that part would not be legal. But again the whole
I mean, we just I want to keep saying this
because it's just kind of get it in your head, like,
this is not in itself illegal to have a shell corporation.
It's right right on board if you're doing if you're
(18:52):
using it for legal purposes, right. Yeah. Another example, which
probably has the more enjoyable name of these three that
were mentioned, is the dummy corporation. A dummy corporation appears
to be a functioning thing. Global Plumbing is a shell corporation.
(19:13):
If Global Plumbing has no assets, has no owner, does nothing,
a dummy corporation. Global Plumbing is a dummy corporation if
it appears to be real, you know, if it seems
to have the signs of an active company. Yeah, there's
the cred maybe their books there on the books, yeah,
but in actuality, it doesn't have the ability to function
(19:36):
by itself exactly. And we have We've put a playlist
on our YouTube page so you can go through show
your friends and your family, like, hey, this is what
a friend company is and how it works, just so
you can get everybody on the same page. If you
want to have a conversation about this, um you know,
maybe you don't want to talk about this with your family,
but you know it might be a good idea. So
(19:57):
let's name some names. If you are listening to this show,
odds are that you have already heard of the Prime
Minister of Iceland who went on leave as of the
seventh of April twenty sixteen. Uh no news, yet they
held emergency like elections, right recall of some kind yep.
(20:20):
And this also affects heads of state like the President
of Argentina, King Salomon of Saudi Arabia, the President of
the u a E, President of Ukraine, Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of the United Kingdah, Prime
Minister of Pakistan, even Prime Minister of Jordan's, Prime Minister
(20:40):
of Moldolva Iraq, Italy Cutter. The list goes on, and
then numerous other government officials. And another thing that we
see is that celebrities we're named as well. Jackie Chan
is in there, of all people, Andrew Elmotive of are
the director. Apparently this his was set up by his
(21:04):
brother in the nineties and has has been closed. But
the fact that that is even in there shows you
how far back this information goes and how exacting and
precise it is. Um, he did you know women on
the vergement of his breakdown and um he's still active,
but he apparently took up took a leave of his
press tour when this information drapped. And it's you know,
(21:25):
the thing about it is too that we're going to
get to um just a bit is it's not necessarily
always prosecutable or like like directly illegal. A lot of
it has to do with just it's kind of kind
of a crappy thing to do. It's kind of the
way the game is played. Yes, and a lot of
you listening, a lot of us already know that this
is how the game is played, right, but some of
(21:47):
this is coming as a real shock to others. Well,
the it's the difference between suspecting somewhat of a crime
and seeing it conducted. Because make no mistake, however, this
is spun. You should surprise no one that FIFA, for instances,
just riddled with corruption. However, in this case, this stuff
(22:09):
goes further because in addition to the heads of states,
the celebrities, the aristocrats that are named, and there's a
heck of event diagram there, there's also uh, they're organized
criminals Manthiosa's bank robbers hiding uh, millions of pounds of money.
Pound the denomination of the not not like a physical
(22:31):
pound of money. You know, we're we're also seeing one
of the tropes that we see in pop culture where
you'll some rich person will give money in their relatives name.
We're seeing tons of relatives of highly influential, ridiculously wealthy people.
And we'll get into the crimes that are the crimes
their associated what crimes may or may not exist. After
(22:53):
a brief word from our sponsor, Yeah, here's where it
gets crazy. So what what crimes exist? I don't know
(23:18):
why I sounded a little woody Allen there, but what
what crimes actually occurred? Because we know what most Fonseka said, Yes,
we know Roman Fonseca, who is the co founder of
most Fonseca. He came forward and said the company hasn't
done any wrongdoing, just completely denied that they've done anything wrong.
They just set up these offshore financial accounts with these
(23:38):
anonymous shell companies for clients. And look, we're not involved
in how they use these things once we set them up.
Even when so far as to say the only crime
associated with the Panama papers at all. Was the hack
of acting of their servers itself. Yeah, and there's an
interesting idea there too, because if we're being if we're
objectively approaching that kind of statement, then it leads to
(24:02):
another question. Should a gun manufacturer, a bullet manufacturer be
held responsible for deaths that happened as a result of crime.
Should auto manufacturers be held responsible for deaths or crimes
that occur in the course of using something they built?
Obviously this is in the scope of our show really
(24:23):
or the episode, but I mean auto manufacturers are held
responsible when it's a malfunction or negligence on their part. Um.
The gun argument is a fascinating one, but it tends
to come up. It seems like no as long as
they're doing everything in their power to make their weapons
traceable and you know, able to be pinned to a crime.
(24:43):
And I'm glad you brought that up, because if we
can look at that car example as well, You're absolutely right.
If there is a defect inherent in the product they create,
then they then and only then are they liable. It's
completely fine to build a car that goes two hundred
miles and hour even though that's illegal everywhere in like
(25:06):
on every public road. Well, they're probably a few where
it's not. You don't often hear about death resulting from
malfunctions of firearms. Usually the death result from them working
exactly as advertising. They're human error yet, and that applies
as well to the kinds of services that this firm provided. Right,
these services are working. This is this was a huge
(25:26):
firm and they were doing well. Would assume what they
were designed to do. You don't get hundreds of thousands
of clients by making dud. Yeah, since the nine seventies
and they were still functioning successfully. And I do think
I will say to Knowle's point that I found it,
uh somewhere between delicious, disgusting and hilarious when people like
(25:50):
the Prime Minister of the UK, Cameron, come out and say, well,
you know, now, privacy is important, especially considering the UK
has the highest the highest density of closed circuit televisions
in the world per kilometer, and and it's also the
population the UK is one of the most closely and
continually surveiled on the planet. Dude, Yeah, I get that
(26:14):
same feeling when you read this. Another quote from the
same du the co founder of and he says, quote
when he's and this is referring to the hack on
this company. Quote, this is a crime, a felony. Privacy
is a fundamental human right that is being eroded more
and more in the modern world. Each person has a
(26:35):
right to privacy, whether they are king or a baker
clutching the pearls noble argument. Let's go into this king
or beggar argument, because one thing that pops out to
me as guys like David Cameron, you know who are
meant to be looking out for the little guy in theory.
You know your politician, you're supposed to represent, you know
your people, all of your people. Then it turns out
(26:57):
that you're cheating. The system doesn't come off so well,
doesn't look very good. Guys. It was only thirty thousand
pounds come on of what gold thousand pounds of jelly
pounds sterling pounds. So there's there's another thing there now
(27:17):
that we have hopefully outlined for you what this stuff
indicates and why it's important and giving you a look
at the level of money we're talking about. Let's flip
it and look at the other side. Because there are
numerous people who believe that there's more to the Panama
(27:39):
papers than you have been told or than journalists are releasing.
And for instance, it all goes back to the same
question motive. Who leaked the papers and why? So, like,
what what do we know about this John Doe guy?
Not a whole lot at this point, which makes sense
considering how fresh the story is and how bloody much
information there is in these in the star. So the
(28:00):
anonymous whistleblower who contacted the German Newslaver we talked about
the top of the show more than a year ago,
had some pretty interesting claims. I'm in here are a
few of them. John Doe didn't want any financial conversation
for exposing this info. That's very telling. Um. Also, I
didn't want to be known. I wanted to remain anonymous,
no direct contact with the investigators. We can kind of
(28:21):
see why that makes sense from looking at Snowden Wiki
leaks all these other things. Did not want to be
exiled from the land. Um. The source also said their
life would be endangered by any exposure, which definitely rings true. Um.
Considering the powerful people involved in these kinds of deals,
you're basically shining a light in a place where you know.
(28:43):
I mean, you know, even like the most upstanding people
on this list certainly wouldn't want this information out there.
But as we know, talking about the whole idea of
hiding criminal enterprises, you could certainly put a target on
your back by by being out there, you know, in
the in public um. Also, this individual claimed this was
a moral imperative, like most ex clients were doing harm
(29:08):
to the world and had to be stopped. So here
we are with an anonymous source does not say how
they acquired documents, where they come from, and supplies his
motivation only that they feel it is the right thing
to do. Again, how noble, how forthright, how Edwards snowed
(29:30):
in of him. See, I I'm so torn here because
I I want to believe that story, that somebody just
got it in themselves that this is the morally correct
thing to do. These are people that I believe are
doing harm. So I'm going to show the world, or
at least in this case, a group of journalists going
to show them this and hopefully they will report it
(29:52):
the way it should be reported. Well, that's definitely what
they said, right, That's what they said, and I want
to believe that, But it's just it's it's tough when
you don't have somebody like in Edward Snowden to put
a picture in your head of who this is, to
actually come out and say these things. You just have
it written down or told to you exactly, which gives
rise to one of the more popular, or for some
(30:16):
more fascinating, intriguing conspiracy theories already surrounding the Panama Papers.
Just for a note for those following the structure and
asking who are the they in the Panama Papers, Well,
the definite they would be the hundreds of thousands of
clients who didn't want people to know that their money
was in the Virgin Islands. However, there's more than one
(30:38):
they in this show, ladies and gentlemen, because they, being
John Doe, don't want you to know who he or
she is, or if it's one person, and this leads
to another, this leads to a conspiracy theory hot off
the presses once the Panama Papers came out. Allegations uh
(30:58):
that John Doe was somehow related to the US or
another state level actor. Oh, British Version Islands, not Virgin Islands.
British Virgin Islands. Slightly slightly different, Okay, but but what's
what's this story about possible state level involvement. Well, we've
heard just tons and tons of theories coming out ideas
(31:22):
about who this may or may not be, everything from
UH intelligence in Britain to intelligence in the US or
I've even heard Australia maybe involved. So let's let's focus
on one. A man named Bradley Berkenfeld. So he's this
American banker who was working at UBS, a financial institution
(31:44):
that Ben and I have spoken about before. We made
a video about that, talking about it was the most
money any bank had been charged. They're fine, Yeah, the
fine that they had to pay back in the day.
And I think this is around the time when he
was blowing the whistle on them. This is in two
thousand nine. So he he disclosed to the U. S.
Government this massive tax of Asian scheme that was going
(32:06):
on by Americans in Switzerland using these secret accounts. Now,
he was awarded a hundred and four million dollars by
the I R. S Whistleblower Office for his efforts in
doing this. He also got to spend two years in
a federal prison here in the States. Why, well, uh,
(32:27):
because I guess he was he was implicated in it,
and he was also doing something that is frowned upon me. Okay,
and so what does he believe happen with the Panama papers. Well,
he points his finger towards the good old Central Intelligence
Agency and he thinks they're behind it, because he says
(32:47):
these leaks have impacted mostly countries with tense relationships with
the United States. Although at this point listeners, some of
some of us will doubtlessly remember that a cord into
some of the latest analysis, we've been able to find
intermediaries of the CIA did work with this company, but
(33:08):
not We don't have any hard proof of CIA involved, true,
no hard proof, But we also know that the CIA
itself is pretty fond of using front companies, right ben
spy spy agencies in general. So I s I massad
all of my five and my six, So that I
mean yeah, but that that in itself is the real
(33:30):
is one of the big reasons that people look at
this and kind of their eye twitches because they are
aware of these facts. Um So. Mr Birkenfeld also has
said that he thinks David Cameron was something unfortunate collateral
damage in this league, and he also stated that, oh,
Oh this, the company Massac Fonseca was just one tiny
(33:53):
part in a vast offshore maze that's used by bankers
and lawyers to hide money from taxipotily that I have
no doubt in my mind that that's the case. Sure, yeah,
this brings us to some some other things, some consequences,
some conclusions, some current developments, almost a colorful developments. And
(34:15):
you know, I guess that would work. No earlier you
had mentioned to us at the top of the show
that just as we were going in, uh, some s
was starting to hit the f which I know that
just sounds weird. Let's say something different. The badgers were
hitting the bag. No, the badgers were biting the bat.
(34:35):
The badgers were biding the bat. The badgers began to
bite the bat as we were walking in. What happened?
What's this new news story? Yeah, so the headquarters of
Mussak Fonseca were actually rated by the Panamanian police yesterday
April the twelve, yesterday recording this and you know you
know about this right, Oh yeah, a little bit. They're
(34:57):
they're searching for evidence of any kind of money laundering
and documents anything about the financing of terrorism, which we
have not mentioned, but it seems like a really big
concern in the right. Yeah, this is a huge concern
in this Yeah, that house of sodd money exactly. And
and the police officers that are doing this are part
(35:19):
of an organized crime unit, so they they know about
all this money laundry. I guess that's part of their specialty.
They're also looking at several subsidiaries of the firm at
a even a computer support center which may hold documents there, right,
files of different illegal activities that did not somehow get
connected or collected in that initial suite. And the big
(35:43):
buzz around our conspiracy at least is that are they
going to destroy documents when they find them because they're
corrupt in any way or working together with you know,
the heads of state. That that's the subredit our conspiracy.
Oh are you yes? Read it? Yeah? That that's fascinating
because it does lead us to believe multiple new stories
(36:08):
are going to be forthcoming within the next few days, weeks,
who knows how long. Multiple journalists have stated that more
stories are on the way, and again, this is just
so much stuff people are still analyzing it. So I
want to ask you, guys, what are the consequences if
(36:29):
any of this. Well, one thing is that countries are
being accused of censoring the information that's coming out about
this um too. I mean, for a lot of reasons,
but one of the main ones just to prevent citizens
inside their country from knowing about it. Because the less
the public knows about the heads of their state perhaps
or even their celebrities, the less they know about them
(36:51):
doing these nefarious things, allegedly nefarious things, the better. And thankfully,
we live in the age of you know, information being
up of our fingers, so it's a lot more difficult
for governments to keep information like this from people that
you know, know where to look, right. You know that's
a stupe because we've said this before on this show,
I believe. But back in let's see the forties or
(37:14):
the thirties or fifties, and the way you would blackout
an entire population, the way you would hide something is
just remove it. So if you had a needle you
didn't want people to see, you would just take the needle.
But now the methods have changed and the best way
to hide the needle is to surround it with a
bunch of other needles. I was doing a needle in
(37:35):
a haystack thing. But I got derailed somewhere along the way,
and now I'm just describing some sort of no your
heroin fans. You're totally right, man. It's a needle and
a needle stack. Now that's that's needle and a needle stack.
You save that one. Well, here's an example of that,
because if you recall, uh, recently, before this news hit
(37:58):
the press and became the you know, the thing that
everyone was focusing on, there was another scandal, another leak
and investigation into a company known as Una Oil right
the I believe vern based in Monaco, and they I
believe was Monico. If I am wrong on that, please
right in and let me get a correction on air.
(38:19):
What we found was that these this organization was brokering
corrupt deals for a lot of large corporate large companies
rather and conglomerates to get favorable business arrangements in a
lot of developing countries and practice resource extraction. But now
(38:40):
no one's really talking about that, So I don't know
if the timing works out. Since if this was indeed
more than a year in the making, it sounds like
the journalists are telling the truth. Then maybe it's just
a coincidence that you know, oil popped up and disappeared.
Maybe it is. I don't know, Ben. I think you're
right that this the un oil story was huge, and
(39:01):
we we were talking about it a lot just around
the office, and I feel like, I think maybe we
need to talk about it in more detail sometime in
the future, just so it doesn't go away, right, And
we want to hear from you. What are your opinions
on the Panama Papers. What part of the world do
you do you call home? What what do people your
(39:24):
neck of the Global woods think about the Panama Papers.
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. We'd love
to hear from you there. We are conspiracy stuff at
both of those And speaking of hearing from you, I
think it's time for shut at Conners. The first shout
(39:45):
out goes to Hannah f who wrote to us about
UFO sightings in Canada and a younger listener. Yes, I
I remember seeing thirteen and then like that's when she started,
when she was thirteen and as eighteen. Now, yeah, thanks
so much for Ryan Haneff. And we're checking the Canadian
UFO report pretty I don't know, we're going pretty hard
(40:07):
on the pain. It's so much fun. I like it. Uh.
And Gail Gerard writes into us and says, uh, she
listens to us while waiting in the caroline to pick
up her son from school. Well, Gail, we hope that
we're making you one of the cool moms. Oh, Gail,
come on, you're absolutely cool. Mom. Do you roll your
windows down when you're listening to everybody else that music
(40:30):
pops in. Finally, we have one from Taylor and who
sent us several personal stories about unusual and strange experiences
in national parks, as well as another explanation for the
disappearances UM, which was a secret space program that includes
moon bases created in the nineteen sixties. I'm not sure
(40:51):
about that one, but that's it's it's pretty great. He
he describes. It's not his theory. Uh. I don't know
if it's I can't remember if he said it was
someone in his family or a friend. But they described
in the nineteen sixties, we've been we've had people on
the moon, and we need people to work these sites
on the moon. So so they've been abducting people just
(41:13):
you know, Willie Nilly out in National parks. Adoption. This
is a good idea. All right, Well, Taylor and you
are attached officially as producer and co writer on that project.
That's the least we can do, right And one last
thing here before we take off. If any of you
are out there going hey guys, Matt Noel, then why
(41:34):
didn't you talk about the Americans and why they aren't
talked about in these papers? Well guess what? There are
some and what what I need you to do is
head over to zero heads dot com because they're they're
pretty good about giving links out to other places as well.
It's just a really good place to start. They name
names in there that are talked about, um specifically Americans,
(41:58):
parts of like the New York Global Group in or
in there, people in Bellevue, Washington. All kinds of people
are in there. Check it out and you'll find what
you're looking for. That is an excellent point, Matt, and
that is where we are going to end the show
to day for now, at least our part of it,
because now it's your part, folks listening. We want to
(42:21):
hear again where you're from, what people are saying about
this where you're at. Do people care? Do people not care?
Our websites blocked in in your country. If so, you know,
it occurs to me the podcast maybe one of the
few ways people are hearing about this, which is baffling
to think about, isn't it. Yeah, it is. So your
(42:42):
job keep tabs on this as you go forward, because
they're gonna be other big stories that pop in the front,
and know everyone will talk about those and this will
just go by the wayside. Keep tabs on it, you know,
maybe write a little note to yourself to look at
it in two months from now, just to see where
we're at, what other relations have come out. And that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
(43:05):
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three std w y t K.
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't want you
(43:26):
to Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
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