The above video from ICIJ gives a good overview of the Panama Papers and their importance
Today, every major news organization is talking about the explosive Panama Papers, a massive leak of data from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca that provides information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors. The leak consists of 11.5 million documents and is considered one of the biggest confidential data leaks in history. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) just revealed their initial findings on the data, which includes such powerful figures as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s son Mohd Nazifuddin Mohd Najib.
Over 100 media organizations from across the globe have been involved in the ICIJ’s investigation into the Panama Papers, and Tempo is the only Indonesian news outlet included on that list. Known for having Indonesia’s finest investigative journalists, Tempo has already done an extremely thorough write-up on the leak, which gives us some insight into how many Indonesians were named in the documents.
Tempo investigators note that the names of the famous billionaires who are regularly featured on Forbes annual list of the richest Indonesian are scattered throughout the document from Mossack Fonseca. Many of them have made dozens of offshore companies for business purposes.
One of those people is Sandiaga Uno, a prominent businessman who is also planning to run against Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in the 2017 governor’s race.
However, Uno did not see too bothered about people learning about his offshore companies and in fact invited the media to publish their names.
“I do have plans to open all [of those records] because I am now in the process of running for public office,” Uno told a Tempo reporter in late March.
In their report, Tempo emphasized that there is no proof that Uno was using his offshore companies for criminal activities. Having an offshore company or account is not in and of itself illegal in most cases, and there are many legitimate business reasons a person might have one.
However, the leaked documents also include the names of many people who have been linked to scams, drug dealing, tax evasion and other crimes. For example, Tempo’s investigation into the papers have found two names that have been linked to corruption cases in Indonesia: businessman Muhammad Riza Chalid and Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support (BLBI) fraud convict Soegiarto Djoko Tjandra.
Indonesian Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told Tempo that the government has obtained data on thousands of offshore and shell companies owned by Indonesian overseas.
“The value is in the thousands of trillions of rupiah,” Bambang said, mentioning that the government’s planned Tax Amnesty Act would help the government be able to recover a significant portion of revenue lost from that money being taken overseas.
As journalists continue to pour over the massive data leak, we’re pretty sure more revelations will be in store for Indonesia. You can check out ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks Database to see what information they already had on offshore companies owned by Indonesian citizens prior to the leak of the Panama Papers.
