April 15, 2016 • 41 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):
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. Welcome
(00:21):
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 auto intersection, the
(00:45):
biggest in the world, and right now there's an enormous accident.
Cars are blowing up and derailing, a flying off the median,
and now we as stuff theyn't want you to know.
So you and Matt Nolan I have decided to stumble
into this accident while it's occurring to see what's going on.
(01:07):
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 as this develops. And this
(01:28):
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. To keep seeing
new things every day, every hour, you know, something new
pops up. As we were going into the studio, we
(01:49):
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 as 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
(02:09):
that are looking at uh secretive financial arrangements 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
(02:30):
word document on your computer. It's a couple of k'm
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 paper, Sue Deutsche Tongue, which I
may be mispronouncing, received this information more than a year
(02:51):
beforehand from an anonymous source identifying his or herself in
a burst of creativity as John Doe. Y. It's an
old sandby. 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
(03:14):
bunch of other things that are also murky, unexplained or
still secret, one of them, 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.
(03:34):
But anyway, when this German paper realized the scope of
the league, as as Noel said, 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,
(03:56):
they are only releasing a small amount of the data
that they received, right the Glenn 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
(04:17):
adapted the way they do a news cycle to cyclically
ignore the new things or find something 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
(04:37):
definitely some of these kind of more let's say, gossipy
kind of details that people definitely get interested in. 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
(05:00):
in a way that many people would not normally understand.
Like it's tough to get your hands around some of
these 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.
(05:25):
They're not that special. Uh. The origin of this information,
which does appear to be true, UH, is rooted in
a place that gives credibility and a 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 primary business since ninety
(05:49):
seven has been to create offshore corporate entities organizational structure
shell companies for clients around the globe. At one point
they have more than three hundred thousands. Uh. 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
(06:11):
all the cool clubs are never yelp or they're never
on 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,
(06:35):
so it's two point six terabytes of data. UM. That
includes details of around two sixteen thousand, most like Finesska clients.
And again these clients are you know, heavy hitters in politics,
in the entertainment world, um, business people, athletes, very affluent
people who are known um And we'll get to who
(06:56):
some of those people are in a bit. But some
of these details include techniques that are actually used 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,
(07:17):
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
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 even even going so far
as to call it laundering money, right, like the funds
if it would be deposited in an unmocked this bank
(07:40):
account under the name global plumber Global plumber. Nice, i'mone
to use that and then messed up on you would die.
So some of these terms we are somewhat familiar with,
like you said, because we have we live in a
pop culture worlds and we you know, there's a lot
(08:02):
of corruption to go around, so we write stories about it. Um,
So let's just describe what it is. What what is
this stuff? Actually? So all of this is like you said, noll,
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 havens 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.
(08:25):
Now here, here's the way they do that. They go offshore,
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 the
(08:47):
laws are different. Um. So what exactly is a tax haven.
So 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
(09:10):
the places where they are being carried out. The way
it connects to our country and our laws is a
different story entirely, 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
(09:32):
use it, right. Um, So there are some great examples
of of tax havens. We're talking a lot of islands,
a lot of vacation destinations, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the
British version, Virgin Islands. Wait wait, great examples are 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 of textbook example. Um, we're talking to
(09:57):
Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Singapore, I 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,
(10:19):
this is just a quick, quick, little side note. Delaware
has been fascinating to me because I for years to
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 possibly from an article in the New York Times,
Delaware actually just has some slightly unusual malleable shall we say,
(10:42):
tax laws and consequently, uh, there is one particular address
there's referenced in this article. That's twelve and 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. Uh, And it's just to
maintain a business address and fall under that legal jurisdiction,
(11:05):
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 hundred companies together are
holding more than two point one trillion dollars in profits
(11:28):
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 five hundred, operate these different subsidiaries and tax havens
to do just that. And they hold that these same
companies maintain at least seven thousand, six hundred and twenty
(11:51):
two tax haven subsidiaries or these things we're calling shell companies.
All right, and let's let's take a second right there,
just to sumit all T L d R. What these
papers show that people who have an extraordinary amount of money.
I don't wanna. I think we're dwelling a lot on
(12:12):
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 to me. I
(12:33):
was thinking about it as let's say let's just say,
for instance, I'm going to 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 an individual
(12:55):
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, Noel is one of the
(13:18):
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,
and then you're shady underworld accountant says, well, you've got
(13:40):
to buy a laundromat or nails law and deli a deli, right,
or just the p O box in Delaware? Yeah, but
a 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
way huge corporations sometimes restructure, like Alphabet for example in Google? Like,
(14:05):
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 is
that when you have a restructuring like that, you're gonna
have operating procedures that function under this new thing that
(14:28):
you create. UB. 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 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
(14:51):
different versions of front companies. UM. It can be UH subsidiary,
it can be a shell company. UH. It's usually from
a large a company that almost always wants to hide
some bit of information about a company or 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
(15:12):
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
the front company. Let's say you get caught messing with
your stockholders or something like that. Then maybe all 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
(15:33):
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 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
(15:56):
business operations. Or really any money doesn't act, it doesn't
really do anything. And these are commonly formed when you're
in the process of starting corporation UM. It sort of
has a formality to get the initial financing UM. And
then they can also be used in tax avoidance schemes
by legitimate businesses UM, which is not not legal, right Yeah,
(16:18):
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
using it for legal purposes, right Yeah. Another example, which
probably has the more enjoyable name of these three that
(16:41):
were mentioned, is the dummy corporation. A dummy corporation appears
to be a functioning thing. Global Plumbing is a shell corporation.
If Global Plumbing has no assets, has no owner, does nothing,
a dummy corporation. Global Plumb is a dummy corporation if
(17:01):
it appears to be real, you know, if it seems
to have the signs of an active company. Yeah, there's
the created maybe their books there on the books. Yeah,
but in actuality. It doesn't have the ability to function
by itself exactly. And we have We've put a playlist
on our YouTube page so you can go through show
(17:22):
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
let's name some names. If you are listening to this show,
Odds are that you have already heard of the Prime
(17:44):
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 the recall of some kind yep.
And this also affects heads of state like the President
of Argentina, King Salomon of Saudi Arabia, the President of
(18:07):
the u a E. President of Ukraine, Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, that's yeah,
Prime Minister of Pakistan, even uh, Prime Minister of Jordan's,
Prime Minister of Moldolva Iraq Italy Cutter. The list goes
on and then numerous other government officials. And another thing
(18:30):
that we see is that celebrities were named as well.
Jackie Chan is in there, of all people, and pro
Motivar the director. Apparently this his was set up by
his brother in the nineties and has has been closed.
But the fact that is even in there shows you
how far back this information goes and how exacting and
(18:52):
precise it is. Um, he did you know women on
the mevergement of his breakdown, and um, he's still active,
but he apparently took a took a leave of his
press tour when this information draws and it's you know,
the thing about it is too that we're gonna get
to um just a bit is it's not necessarily always
prosecutable or like like directly illegal. A lot of it
(19:14):
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 this is
coming as a real shock to others. Well. The it's
the difference between suspecting someone of a crime and seeing
(19:36):
it conducted because make no mistake, however, this is spun.
You should surprise no one that FIFA, for instance, is
just riddled with corruption. However, in this case, this stuff
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 their organ eyes, criminals,
(20:00):
mafiosa's bank robbers hiding uh millions of pounds of money.
Pound the denomination of the not not like a physical
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.
(20:25):
And we'll get into the crimes that are the crimes
their associated what crimes may or may not exist. After
a brief word from our sponsor, here's where it gets crazy.
(20:52):
So what what crimes exist? I don't know why it
sounded a little woody allen there, but what what what
crimes actually occurred? Because we know what most Fonseka said, Yes,
we know Roman Fonseca, who is the co founder of
most Econseca. He came forward and said, the company hasn't
done any wrongdoing, just completely denied that they've done anything wrong.
(21:13):
They just set up these offshore financial accounts with these
anonymous shell companies for clients, and look, we're not involved
in how they use these things once we set them up.
But even went 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
(21:35):
we're objectively approaching that kind of statement, then it leads
to 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
(21:58):
they built. Obviously this is in the scope of our
show really 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
(22:19):
pinned to a crime. And I'm glad you brought that up,
because if we look at that car example as well,
You're absolutely right. If there is a defect inherent in
the product they create, then they and then and only
then are they liable. It's completely fine to build a
car that goes two hundred miles an hour, even though
that's illegal everywhere in like on every public road. Well,
(22:45):
they're probably a few words not You don't often though
here about death resulting from malfunctions of firearms. Usually the
death result from them working exactly as advertising. They're human error.
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 firm and they were doing well.
(23:06):
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.
(23:27):
When people like 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,
(23:52):
I get that 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 right to privacy, whether they are king
(24:15):
or a baker clutching the pearls noble argument. Let's 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 that you're cheating the system doesn't
(24:38):
come off so well, doesn't look very good. Guys, it
was only thirty thousand pounds come on of what of
goldusand pounds of jelly pounds Sterling Township. Thank you. So
there's there's another thing there now that we have hopefully
(24:58):
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 papers than you have
(25:19):
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 this league. So the anonymous whistleblower who
(25:39):
contacted the German newspaper we talked about at the top
of the show more than a year ago had some
pretty interesting claims. I'm going here are a few of them.
John Doe didn't want any financial conversation for exposing this info.
That's very telling. Um also didn't want to be known.
I wanted to remain anonymous. No direct contact with the investigators.
We can kind of see why that makes sense from
(26:01):
looking at Snowdon 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, I mean, you know,
(26:22):
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
(26:44):
sex clients were doing harm 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 motive nation only that they
feel it is the right thing to do. Again, how noble,
(27:06):
how forthright, how Edwards snowed 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
(27:28):
hopefully they will report it 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,
(27:48):
which gives rise to one of the more popular, or
for some more fascinating, intriguing conspiracy theories already surrounding the
Panama Papers. Just through 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
(28:09):
clients who didn't want people to know that their money
was in the Virgin Islands. However, there's more than one
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
(28:31):
the presses once the Panama Papers came out, allegations, uh
that John Doe was somehow related to the US or
another state level actor. Oh and British Version Islands, not
Virgin Islands. British Virgin Islands, slightly slightly different. Right, Okay,
But but so what's what's the story about possible state
(28:53):
level involvement. Well, we've heard just tons and tons of
theories coming out ideas of out 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.
(29:17):
So he's this American banker who was working at UBS,
a financial institution 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. 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
(29:39):
thousand nine. So he disclosed to the U. S. Government
this massive tax of Asian scheme that was going on
by Americans in Switzerland using these secret accounts. Now, he
was awarded a hundred and four million dollars by the
I R. S. Whistle Blower Office for his efforts in
doing this, also got to spend two years in a
(30:01):
federal prison here in the States. Why well, uh, 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,
(30:22):
and he thinks they're behind it, because he says, 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 according to some of
the latest analysis, we've been able to find intermediaries of
(30:43):
the CIA did work with this company, but 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 m odd
all of my five and my six so that I mean, yeah,
(31:05):
but that that in itself is the real 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 some unfortunate collateral damage in
this league. And he also stated that, ohh this the
(31:28):
company Mossac Fonseca was just one tiny part in a
vast offshore maze that's used by bankers and lawyers to
hide money from taxip 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
(31:50):
current developments, almost a colorful development. So 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. Know,
(32:11):
the badgers were biting the bat. The badgers were biting
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 when we're
recording this, and you know, you know about this, right, oh, yeah,
(32:34):
a little bit. They're 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 that bin laden money. Yeah,
that house of sowd money exactly. And and the police
(32:56):
officers that are doing this are part 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
(33:17):
or collected in that initial suite. And the big 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 subreddit our conspiracy not
Oh are you subredit? Yeah, that's fascinating because it does
(33:41):
lead us to believe multiple new stories 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
(34:02):
ask you, guys, what are the consequences if 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
(34:24):
heads of their state perhaps or even their celebrities, the
less they know about them doing these nefarious things, allegedly
nefarious things, the better. And thankfully, we live in the
age of you know, information being the tips 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
(34:47):
said this before on this show, I believe, but back
in let's see the forties or the thirties or fifties,
and the way you would blackout an entire population something,
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
(35:09):
the needle is to surround it with a bunch of
other needles. I was doing a needle in a haystack thing,
but I got derailed somewhere along the way. And now
I'm just describing some sort of heroin fans. You're totally right, man.
It's a needle and a needle stack. Now that's that's
a needle and a needle stack. You save that one. Well,
here's an example of that, because if you recall, uh, recently,
(35:33):
before this news hit 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 they were based in Monaco
and they I believe it was Monico. If I am
wrong on that, please right in and let me get
(35:54):
a correction on air. 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
(36:15):
resource extraction. But now 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.
(36:36):
I think you're right that this the un oil story
was huge, and we but 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
(36:57):
of the world do you do you call home? What
what do people your 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.
(37:22):
The first shout 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 listening when she was thirteen and as eighteen. Now, yeah,
thanks so much for Riyan Hanaff And we're checking the
Canadian UFO report. Pretty I don't know, we're going pretty
(37:45):
hard on the pan. 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 so everybody else. Finally, we
(38:11):
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 about that one, but
that's it's pretty great. He he describes. It's not his theory. Uh,
(38:35):
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 you know, willy nilly out in national parks.
To be a script, we need adoption. This is a
(38:56):
good idea. All right, Well, uh, Taylor in 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
didn't you talk about the Americans and why they aren't
talked about in these papers? Well guess what there are
(39:20):
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,
parts of like the New York Global Group in or
in their UM people in Bellevue, Washington, all kinds of
(39:42):
people are in there. Check it out and you'll find
what you're looking for. That is an excellent point, met,
and that is where we are going to end this
show today for now, at least our part of it,
because now it's your part, folks listening. We want to
hear again where you're from, what people are saying about this.
(40:04):
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
job keep tabs on this as you go forward because
they're gonna be other big stories that pop in the front,
(40:26):
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 revelations have come out, And feel
free to forward that note to us at conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com.
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. Welcome
(00:21):
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 auto intersection, the
(00:45):
biggest in the world, and right now there's an enormous accident.
Cars are blowing up and derailing, a flying off the median,
and now we as stuff theyn't want you to know.
So you and Matt Nolan I have decided to stumble
into this accident while it's occurring to see what's going on.
(01:07):
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 as this develops. And this
(01:28):
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. To keep seeing
new things every day, every hour, you know, something new
pops up. As we were going into the studio, we
(01:49):
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 as 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
(02:09):
that are looking at uh secretive financial arrangements 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
(02:30):
word document on your computer. It's a couple of k'm
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 paper, Sue Deutsche Tongue, which I
may be mispronouncing, received this information more than a year
(02:51):
beforehand from an anonymous source identifying his or herself in
a burst of creativity as John Doe. Y. It's an
old sandby. 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
(03:14):
bunch of other things that are also murky, unexplained or
still secret, one of them, 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.
(03:34):
But anyway, when this German paper realized the scope of
the league, as as Noel said, 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,
(03:56):
they are only releasing a small amount of the data
that they received, right the Glenn 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
(04:17):
adapted the way they do a news cycle to cyclically
ignore the new things or find something 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
(04:37):
definitely some of these kind of more let's say, gossipy
kind of details that people definitely get interested in. 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
(05:00):
in a way that many people would not normally understand.
Like it's tough to get your hands around some of
these 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.
(05:25):
They're not that special. Uh. The origin of this information,
which does appear to be true, UH, is rooted in
a place that gives credibility and a 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 primary business since ninety
(05:49):
seven has been to create offshore corporate entities organizational structure
shell companies for clients around the globe. At one point
they have more than three hundred thousands. Uh. 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
(06:11):
all the cool clubs are never yelp or they're never
on 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,
(06:35):
so it's two point six terabytes of data. UM. That
includes details of around two sixteen thousand, most like Finesska clients.
And again these clients are you know, heavy hitters in politics,
in the entertainment world, um, business people, athletes, very affluent
people who are known um And we'll get to who
(06:56):
some of those people are in a bit. But some
of these details include techniques that are actually used 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,
(07:17):
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
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 even even going so far
as to call it laundering money, right, like the funds
if it would be deposited in an unmocked this bank
(07:40):
account under the name global plumber Global plumber. Nice, i'mone
to use that and then messed up on you would die.
So some of these terms we are somewhat familiar with,
like you said, because we have we live in a
pop culture worlds and we you know, there's a lot
(08:02):
of corruption to go around, so we write stories about it. Um,
So let's just describe what it is. What what is
this stuff? Actually? So all of this is like you said, noll,
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 havens 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.
(08:25):
Now here, here's the way they do that. They go offshore,
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 the
(08:47):
laws are different. Um. So what exactly is a tax haven.
So 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
(09:10):
the places where they are being carried out. The way
it connects to our country and our laws is a
different story entirely, 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
(09:32):
use it, right. Um, So there are some great examples
of of tax havens. We're talking a lot of islands,
a lot of vacation destinations, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the
British version, Virgin Islands. Wait wait, great examples are 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 of textbook example. Um, we're talking to
(09:57):
Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Singapore, I 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,
(10:19):
this is just a quick, quick, little side note. Delaware
has been fascinating to me because I for years to
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 possibly from an article in the New York Times,
Delaware actually just has some slightly unusual malleable shall we say,
(10:42):
tax laws and consequently, uh, there is one particular address
there's referenced in this article. That's twelve and 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. Uh, And it's just to
maintain a business address and fall under that legal jurisdiction,
(11:05):
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 hundred companies together are
holding more than two point one trillion dollars in profits
(11:28):
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 five hundred, operate these different subsidiaries and tax havens
to do just that. And they hold that these same
companies maintain at least seven thousand, six hundred and twenty
(11:51):
two tax haven subsidiaries or these things we're calling shell companies.
All right, and let's let's take a second right there,
just to sumit all T L d R. What these
papers show that people who have an extraordinary amount of money.
I don't wanna. I think we're dwelling a lot on
(12:12):
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 to me. I
(12:33):
was thinking about it as let's say let's just say,
for instance, I'm going to 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 an individual
(12:55):
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, Noel is one of the
(13:18):
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,
and then you're shady underworld accountant says, well, you've got
(13:40):
to buy a laundromat or nails law and deli a deli, right,
or just the p O box in Delaware? Yeah, but
a 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
way huge corporations sometimes restructure, like Alphabet for example in Google? Like,
(14:05):
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 is
that when you have a restructuring like that, you're gonna
have operating procedures that function under this new thing that
(14:28):
you create. UB. 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 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
(14:51):
different versions of front companies. UM. It can be UH subsidiary,
it can be a shell company. UH. It's usually from
a large a company that almost always wants to hide
some bit of information about a company or 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
(15:12):
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
the front company. Let's say you get caught messing with
your stockholders or something like that. Then maybe all 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
(15:33):
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 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
(15:56):
business operations. Or really any money doesn't act, it doesn't
really do anything. And these are commonly formed when you're
in the process of starting corporation UM. It sort of
has a formality to get the initial financing UM. And
then they can also be used in tax avoidance schemes
by legitimate businesses UM, which is not not legal, right Yeah,
(16:18):
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
using it for legal purposes, right Yeah. Another example, which
probably has the more enjoyable name of these three that
(16:41):
were mentioned, is the dummy corporation. A dummy corporation appears
to be a functioning thing. Global Plumbing is a shell corporation.
If Global Plumbing has no assets, has no owner, does nothing,
a dummy corporation. Global Plumb is a dummy corporation if
(17:01):
it appears to be real, you know, if it seems
to have the signs of an active company. Yeah, there's
the created maybe their books there on the books. Yeah,
but in actuality. It doesn't have the ability to function
by itself exactly. And we have We've put a playlist
on our YouTube page so you can go through show
(17:22):
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
let's name some names. If you are listening to this show,
Odds are that you have already heard of the Prime
(17:44):
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 the recall of some kind yep.
And this also affects heads of state like the President
of Argentina, King Salomon of Saudi Arabia, the President of
(18:07):
the u a E. President of Ukraine, Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, that's yeah,
Prime Minister of Pakistan, even uh, Prime Minister of Jordan's,
Prime Minister of Moldolva Iraq Italy Cutter. The list goes
on and then numerous other government officials. And another thing
(18:30):
that we see is that celebrities were named as well.
Jackie Chan is in there, of all people, and pro
Motivar the director. Apparently this his was set up by
his brother in the nineties and has has been closed.
But the fact that is even in there shows you
how far back this information goes and how exacting and
(18:52):
precise it is. Um, he did you know women on
the mevergement of his breakdown, and um, he's still active,
but he apparently took a took a leave of his
press tour when this information draws and it's you know,
the thing about it is too that we're gonna get
to um just a bit is it's not necessarily always
prosecutable or like like directly illegal. A lot of it
(19:14):
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 this is
coming as a real shock to others. Well. The it's
the difference between suspecting someone of a crime and seeing
(19:36):
it conducted because make no mistake, however, this is spun.
You should surprise no one that FIFA, for instance, is
just riddled with corruption. However, in this case, this stuff
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 their organ eyes, criminals,
(20:00):
mafiosa's bank robbers hiding uh millions of pounds of money.
Pound the denomination of the not not like a physical
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.
(20:25):
And we'll get into the crimes that are the crimes
their associated what crimes may or may not exist. After
a brief word from our sponsor, here's where it gets crazy.
(20:52):
So what what crimes exist? I don't know why it
sounded a little woody allen there, but what what what
crimes actually occurred? Because we know what most Fonseka said, Yes,
we know Roman Fonseca, who is the co founder of
most Econseca. He came forward and said, the company hasn't
done any wrongdoing, just completely denied that they've done anything wrong.
(21:13):
They just set up these offshore financial accounts with these
anonymous shell companies for clients, and look, we're not involved
in how they use these things once we set them up.
But even went 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
(21:35):
we're objectively approaching that kind of statement, then it leads
to 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
(21:58):
they built. Obviously this is in the scope of our
show really 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
(22:19):
pinned to a crime. And I'm glad you brought that up,
because if we look at that car example as well,
You're absolutely right. If there is a defect inherent in
the product they create, then they and then and only
then are they liable. It's completely fine to build a
car that goes two hundred miles an hour, even though
that's illegal everywhere in like on every public road. Well,
(22:45):
they're probably a few words not You don't often though
here about death resulting from malfunctions of firearms. Usually the
death result from them working exactly as advertising. They're human error.
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 firm and they were doing well.
(23:06):
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.
(23:27):
When people like 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,
(23:52):
I get that 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 right to privacy, whether they are king
(24:15):
or a baker clutching the pearls noble argument. Let's 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 that you're cheating the system doesn't
(24:38):
come off so well, doesn't look very good. Guys, it
was only thirty thousand pounds come on of what of
goldusand pounds of jelly pounds Sterling Township. Thank you. So
there's there's another thing there now that we have hopefully
(24:58):
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 papers than you have
(25:19):
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 this league. So the anonymous whistleblower who
(25:39):
contacted the German newspaper we talked about at the top
of the show more than a year ago had some
pretty interesting claims. I'm going here are a few of them.
John Doe didn't want any financial conversation for exposing this info.
That's very telling. Um also didn't want to be known.
I wanted to remain anonymous. No direct contact with the investigators.
We can kind of see why that makes sense from
(26:01):
looking at Snowdon 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, I mean, you know,
(26:22):
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
(26:44):
sex clients were doing harm 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 motive nation only that they
feel it is the right thing to do. Again, how noble,
(27:06):
how forthright, how Edwards snowed 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
(27:28):
hopefully they will report it 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,
(27:48):
which gives rise to one of the more popular, or
for some more fascinating, intriguing conspiracy theories already surrounding the
Panama Papers. Just through 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
(28:09):
clients who didn't want people to know that their money
was in the Virgin Islands. However, there's more than one
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
(28:31):
the presses once the Panama Papers came out, allegations, uh
that John Doe was somehow related to the US or
another state level actor. Oh and British Version Islands, not
Virgin Islands. British Virgin Islands, slightly slightly different. Right, Okay,
But but so what's what's the story about possible state
(28:53):
level involvement. Well, we've heard just tons and tons of
theories coming out ideas of out 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.
(29:17):
So he's this American banker who was working at UBS,
a financial institution 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. 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
(29:39):
thousand nine. So he disclosed to the U. S. Government
this massive tax of Asian scheme that was going on
by Americans in Switzerland using these secret accounts. Now, he
was awarded a hundred and four million dollars by the
I R. S. Whistle Blower Office for his efforts in
doing this, also got to spend two years in a
(30:01):
federal prison here in the States. Why well, uh, 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,
(30:22):
and he thinks they're behind it, because he says, 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 according to some of
the latest analysis, we've been able to find intermediaries of
(30:43):
the CIA did work with this company, but 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 m odd
all of my five and my six so that I mean, yeah,
(31:05):
but that that in itself is the real 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 some unfortunate collateral damage in
this league. And he also stated that, ohh this the
(31:28):
company Mossac Fonseca was just one tiny part in a
vast offshore maze that's used by bankers and lawyers to
hide money from taxip 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
(31:50):
current developments, almost a colorful development. So 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. Know,
(32:11):
the badgers were biting the bat. The badgers were biting
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 when we're
recording this, and you know, you know about this, right, oh, yeah,
(32:34):
a little bit. They're 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 that bin laden money. Yeah,
that house of sowd money exactly. And and the police
(32:56):
officers that are doing this are part 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
(33:17):
or collected in that initial suite. And the big 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 subreddit our conspiracy not
Oh are you subredit? Yeah, that's fascinating because it does
(33:41):
lead us to believe multiple new stories 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
(34:02):
ask you, guys, what are the consequences if 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
(34:24):
heads of their state perhaps or even their celebrities, the
less they know about them doing these nefarious things, allegedly
nefarious things, the better. And thankfully, we live in the
age of you know, information being the tips 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
(34:47):
said this before on this show, I believe, but back
in let's see the forties or the thirties or fifties,
and the way you would blackout an entire population something,
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
(35:09):
the needle is to surround it with a bunch of
other needles. I was doing a needle in a haystack thing,
but I got derailed somewhere along the way. And now
I'm just describing some sort of heroin fans. You're totally right, man.
It's a needle and a needle stack. Now that's that's
a needle and a needle stack. You save that one. Well,
here's an example of that, because if you recall, uh, recently,
(35:33):
before this news hit 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 they were based in Monaco
and they I believe it was Monico. If I am
wrong on that, please right in and let me get
(35:54):
a correction on air. 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
(36:15):
resource extraction. But now 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.
(36:36):
I think you're right that this the un oil story
was huge, and we but 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
(36:57):
of the world do you do you call home? What
what do people your 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.
(37:22):
The first shout 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 listening when she was thirteen and as eighteen. Now, yeah,
thanks so much for Riyan Hanaff And we're checking the
Canadian UFO report. Pretty I don't know, we're going pretty
(37:45):
hard on the pan. 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 so everybody else. Finally, we
(38:11):
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 about that one, but
that's it's pretty great. He he describes. It's not his theory. Uh,
(38:35):
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 you know, willy nilly out in national parks.
To be a script, we need adoption. This is a
(38:56):
good idea. All right, Well, uh, Taylor in 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
didn't you talk about the Americans and why they aren't
talked about in these papers? Well guess what there are
(39:20):
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,
parts of like the New York Global Group in or
in their UM people in Bellevue, Washington, all kinds of
(39:42):
people are in there. Check it out and you'll find
what you're looking for. That is an excellent point, met,
and that is where we are going to end this
show today for now, at least our part of it,
because now it's your part, folks listening. We want to
hear again where you're from, what people are saying about this.
(40:04):
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
job keep tabs on this as you go forward because
they're gonna be other big stories that pop in the front,
(40:26):
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 revelations have come out, And feel
free to forward that note to us at conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com.
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Noel Brown
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