6 ms·

Are the Russians Actually Behind the Panama Papers?

67 points by randomname2 11y ago

otec 11y ago
Interesting article
okasaki 11y ago
Is Clifford Gaddy sponsored by the CIA to discredit Russia? from http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2014/mr-putin-2nd-edition http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2014/mr-putin-2nd-ed... > For anyone wishing to understand Russia’s evolution since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its trajectory since then, the book you hold in your hand is an essential guide. —John McLaughlin, former deputy director of U.S. Central Intelligence Certainly more proof and more intuitively plausible than any theory presented in his article.
- blowski 11y ago
  Yep. Another article supporting Betteridge's rule.
lolidaisuki 11y ago
It's more likely that the US leaked them and redacted all of the US companies.
noir_lord 11y ago
As long as the stuff in them is true I'm only slightly interested about the source. In fact the ideal arrangement for me as a non-government entity is all the government entities constantly smearing each other. It would be nice to get more of the full picture at least.
dogma1138 11y ago
Nothing in these papers also show anything about me so I must be behind it, you caught me!
madaxe_again 11y ago
A big part of the author's logic is based on the assumption that this was a technically complex, state sponsored hack. This was script-kiddie stuff - it could've been anyone from a teenager in Wisconsin to a couple of channers in Bangkok and Banjul in it for the lulz. Anyway, any speculation on the source is just a distraction from the content.
- Dolores12 11y ago
  no, its just another angry female assistant downloaded their whole 2.6TB database on her 512gb flash drive.
grokys 11y ago
Or to use the same logic, maybe the lack of Americans implicated in the Panama papers indicates the the US is behind them?
danbruc 11y ago
Not worth reading. Full of prejudices, logically inconsistent, a bit like a conspiracy theory.
- meric 11y ago
  Government electronic surveillance was once a "conspiracy theory". I'm not comfortable with it being posed as a dirty word.
  - danbruc 11y ago
    Maybe the actual extend and details, but US surveillance in Europe was already something the European Parliament investigated in the late 90s. And even then it was no surprise to the people in that area. Snowden added a lot of detail and made the topic a mainstream topic but hardly did he show that a conspiracy theory - which it never was - is in fact true. Within Europe, all email, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by Satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York Moors of the UK. The system was first uncovered in the 1970's by a group of researchers in the UK (Campbell, 1981). Other work on what is now known as Signals intelligence was undertaken by researchers such as James Bamford, which uncovered a billion dollar world wide interceptions network, which he nicknamed 'Puzzle Palace'. A recent work by Nicky Hager, Secret Power, (Hager,1996) provides the most comprehensive details to date of a project known as ECHELON. Hager interviewed more than 50 people concerned with intelligence to document a global surveillance system that stretches around the world to form a targeting system on all of the key Intelsat satellites used to convey most of the world's satellite phone calls, internet, email, faxes and telexes. These sites are based at Sugar Grove and Yakima, in the USA, at Waihopai in New Zealand, at Geraldton in Australia, Hong Kong, and Morwenstow in the UK. The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like Memex. to find key words. Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the UKUSA agreement of 1948, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very much acting as subordinate information servicers. European Parliament, 1998, An appraisal of technologies for political control, https://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm https://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm
goodcanadian 11y ago
In short, I don't know. An article like this is (almost) pure speculation and that's all it can be. However, it is one of the more interesting things I've read about the "Panama papers." Nothing in them is much of a surprise. Don't get me wrong; I'm generally happy about the release, and I hope any blatant criminals are caught and prosecuted. That said, we all knew it was happening.
lolc 11y ago
Pretty entertaining conspiracy theories in there. No single shred of evidence is provided beyond "I think it would make sense for the Russians to do this". This guy seems to be much preoccupied with Russia. Oh wait he's written books about the country. Even if he had proof he wouldn't have a point. There seems to be no end to the parade of people saying how "our" interests are harmed by these publications. If your org is corrupt, I want it to be destabilized. I want you to fear personal exposure.
cm2187 11y ago
This pure, raw speculation.
contemporary2u 11y ago
who released this info and for what reasons exactly will always be the question that i think will never be answered, but lets not forget that information itself seems to be legit. Iceland's PM resignation confirms that, at least partially. Everyone knows that Russia is corrupt up to the top. How? Pretty much every top politician (and their families) in russia own far more than can be purchased on a state salary. Spokes person for Kremlin is spotted wearing 700,000 Euro watch when his official salary is less than 1/10 of that. A lot of Russian government officials and their inner circles own multi-million dollar properties in: London, Spain, New York, Boston etc. Their families live in the west, their kids go to schools in usa and europe... Panama papers disclose how these multi million bribes and shady dealings are accepted and how money is transferred and used to buy up assets overseas. Good old days of a bribe in a suitcase are gone... Its hard to fit $300mil of cash in a suitcase (well Italians would argue lol). IT IS very suspicious that no high profile Americans were caught in this release... It is possible that USA players simply use different entities to set up shell corps and transfer money using different channels.
- cm2187 11y ago
  Agree, I'd be inclined to think it is either a hacker, or an insider, or a US agency. Putin was at the top of the revelations, even if the news was unsurprising (but like the Snowden documents, it's not because we all suspected it that the proof is any less valuable). If the guy who did it is not US authorities, I would not not sleep well if I was him. The police in London regularly picks up the hung or poisoned bodies of those who dared to attack or expose Putin...
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Top 10 countries that offer financial secrecy, according to the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35998801 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35998801 Switzerland Hong Kong USA Singapore The Cayman Islands Luxembourg Lebanon Germany Bahrain United Arab Emirates Panama seems to be down at the low-rent end of the financial secrecy market. So no - the OP is not only not plausible, but raises more questions than it answers. Practically, I'd expect a Russian hack to specifically target the tax affairs of Putin's enemies. This may yet happen now, with Russian and/or Chinese hackers targeting the tax secrets of prominent Western politicians - which would be an interesting development for everyone.
havetocharge 11y ago
The author is focused on making a case that the Russians are behind the Panama Papers and have an ulterior motive. Not once he mentions that the behaviours the papers expose are criminal or otherwise negative. Even while discussing wrongdoing by Western parties, the Russians are implied to be more villainous.
- ci5er 11y ago
  > Not once he mentions that the behaviors the papers expose are criminal Are they criminal? Having an offshore company generally isn’t illegal. There may be questions about how some political figures' (for example) funds were obtained in the first place, but the mere existence of funds in some tax-advantaged vehicles is no evidence of a crime. gosh, one would think that some of the funds might be ill-gotten proceeds from criminal enterprises, but if the use of off-shore entities are prima facie evidence of criminal intent, then I'm in trouble.
  - havetocharge 11y ago
    There is an 'or' in there. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer or a judge, and the assertion that there is a crime is not related to the point was trying to make.
    - ci5er 11y ago
      > There is an 'or' in there. Fair enough. There was. > Anyway, I'm not a lawyer Are you sure? Your very first sentence sounded very lawyer-like! :-)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
irixusr 11y ago
More speculation that confirms our theory without any evidence. * The theory is "we're good. Anyone we don't like is bad" The evidence collection goes "confirms our theory, it's true." Or " Contradicts it, we either ignore it our dismiss it" Case in point, the unaoil scandal is much more serious than anything in these Panama papers, it involves "the good guys" and it's largely forgotten a week after it release. * ironically enough RT is (was?) pushing the theory that the CIA is behind it because there are no notable American on the list. So it's a KGB/CIA plot because Putin/Americans come out relatively unscathed
- grokys 11y ago
  Interestingly the Unaoil scandal wasn't even reported by the BBC (except a brief mention on their World Service). I'm interested to know exactly why this scandal on the other hand is being covered so heavily by them and other outlets.
  - irixusr 11y ago
    I'm sure if you google it there'll be blurb on their website. But Chomsky points out that appearing impartial is part of the media manipulation. They'll print the juicier bits, but buried deep were few except geeks and junkies like me will read it. Another two techniques that infuriate me: 1. Editing published articles after they are published and making the original unavailable. (Editing should look like word's auto-track feature: in bright red) 2. Not following up on a story after you launched salvos into a person/ideas truth worthiness and they are vindicated
- throwaway5752 11y ago
  RT is propaganda/psyops on a level that doesn't quite have a Western equivalent. This is not a statement in support of Western journalistic independence and objectivity, so much as it is how carefully packaged/constructed RT is. edit: Hah! Downvotes. I read RT. I read WSJ (even OpEds sometimes, but I don't enjoy it). I read AJ. I read NYT. I read from many sources and high degree of skepticism of all of them. But if you read RT regularly, I doubt you're the one downvoting.
thedevil 11y ago
This reads like propaganda and misses what I consider a big question: why did Putin claim himself as "the main target" when the media wasn't focused on him and there was no evidence really damning him? It just raises questions rather than deflecting them. Putin does not seem so stupid. Why would he do this? It's like getting pulled over for a speeding ticket and saying "I didn't kill him, there's no evidence, this is a plot against me".
- formula1 11y ago
  Amoungst the first big articles published were revelations about putin's freinds 2 billion in offshore money and China's PM's Suster abd Freind having offshore accounts. But we recieved nothing about america. We have recieved some stuff about the UK but 30k of taxed money is not illegal at all.
- losteric 11y ago
  Well there was some pretty damning evidence, maybe Putin was hoping western media would blow it up more so he could claim it wasn't him.
- sevensor 11y ago
  I'm not sure how any of this comes off as bad for Putin. What's the harm in letting the world know that his friends get rich? Combined with what we already know about the effects on life expectancy of being in the opposition, this sends a pretty strong message. "Gold for my friends, lead for my enemies." I see the whole thing as a declaration from Putin to Russia, especially given his protestations. Authoritarian regimes are all about internal social control. Why do we think this has to be about the West?
  - thedevil 11y ago
    "I see the whole thing as a declaration from Putin to Russia" After thinking about it, I think you're right on this. I'm evaluating it as bad international PR when it's probably more internal propaganda.
Grue3 11y ago
Well, Putin himself claimed that Panama Papers are "western propaganda" so there's no way for him to spin them as legitimate after that.
- throwaway5752 11y ago
  Propaganda is not known for or particularly concerned with consistency ('we've always been at war with Eastasia'). I don't know who did this and don't have an opinion personally, but your conclusion (though logical) isn't particularly meaningful for attribution. From what I've observed, the Russian political class is not particularly concerned with hiding financial corruption.
forgetsusername 11y ago
If the information is legitimate, who cares who was behind it? If it was the Russians, why would we look at the leak as "evil" rather than praising them for doing so? Maybe more Americans should be leaking this sort of information.
johnchristopher 11y ago
Now that's funny, this morning radio headlines about the Panama papers were relaying rumors about how it's America behind the divulgation to embarrass Russia and others.
lambdadmitry 11y ago
As a Russian citizen who is following the scandal (and Russian politics), I am a bit baffled by the article. First, all of its reasoning will fall apart if we examine its premises. >there is no evidence of Putin’s direct involvement—not in any company involved in the leak, much less in criminal activity, theft, tax evasion, or money laundering. There are documents showing that some of his “friends” have moved “up to two billion dollars” through these Panama-based shell companies. This isn't true and the author is either deliberately lying or is simply misinformed. What we are talking here are $2b moving through the account in the name of a professional cellist Roldugin. Roldugin is a close friend of Putin and he already denied on record that he owns any big business besides his performances. Those $2b came from various shady deals such as: - an agreement to buy a bunch of Rosneft stocks which is almost immediately terminated, with $750k in punitive damages being paid to a Roldugin's company; - an agreement to collect an outstanding debt of 4 billion roubles (around $50m) from Rostelekom (state-owned telecom company), which cost $1 (yeah, one dollar) to the offshore company; - a shell company providing a debt of $6m to Roldugin's offshore and forgiving it after a few months for $1. A single deal like this is possible but improbable. Two billion dollars of such deals are impossible and they scream "corruption" and "bribe", and there is no single official in Russia that will demand bribes of this order of magnitude except Putin. Even if it's not him, either he is clueless (and the article in question doesn't make sense) or he knows about it and is okay with it (and therefore he is involved). >But nothing in the Panama Papers reveals anything new about Putin. It is in fact far less of a story than has been alleged for a long time. For over 10 years, there have been suspicions that Putin has a vast personal fortune, claimed at first to be $20 billion, then $40, $70, even $100… And now all they find is “maybe” a couple of billion belonging to a friend? This passage implies equality of "allegations" and documents detailing business transactions. I'm not sure if I even need to debunk this, but let's recast it a bit: "It's widely alleged that 9/11 was organized by the government because jet fuel can't melt steel beams. Therefore, documents detailing CIA communication with 9/11 terrorists are nothing new and aren't a big deal". Does it even make sense? >A “friend of Putin” is linked to companies that channel a couple of billion dollars through the offshore companies. Why? To evade Russian taxes? Really? To conceal ownership? From whom? You don’t need an offshore registration to do that. To evade sanctions? That’s a credible reason, but it makes sense only if the companies were registered after mid-2014. Were they? I like how the author waves away "to conceal ownership" part as if it's a non-issue. It's a pretty big deal because every dictator wants to a) have a backup plan and for this, they need a safe and anonymous place to hide their money away from their country and b) pass the money to their children so they can spend them somewhere. It's not like you can just load up trucks with $50 bills in Kremlin. However, in general, Western countries don't exactly support this and see such funds as a lever, so you need a concealment. The rest of the article builds upon this premises, which are false. Therefore, it's all false. Second, what wonders me is the fact that some Westerners are fascinated by Putin and his cronies. It shows up in the way the author speaks about "Russian hacking capabilities" or Putin's implied geopolitical prowess. No, there is nothing to be fascinated about. Those are people who are managed to waste a golden rain of oil money down the drain (just look at the photos of a typical 1m+ Russian city Omsk [1]) while destroying and corrupting every civic institute in the country. It's a typical reactive behavior of a plutocratic rule that got lucky with oil prices and now tries to stay afloat while having no regard for a wellbeing of their own citizens. I don't believe statesmen like this are even remotely worthy of admiration, and yet some do admire them. This is something beyond my understanding. [1]: http://varlamov.ru/1637956.html http://varlamov.ru/1637956.html
jug 11y ago
No way I am believing that. If I'd believe in consoiracies, I'd rather say it is a US leak... The USA is less involved here than Putin's own government. Makes no sense. No, it is no excuse that Putin was already suspected, because these papers are further damaging as solid proof that he is surrounding himself with corruption. Not just rumors.
Cypher 11y ago
meaningless because our reporters are the ones looking at it and will choose what to publish.

67 points by randomname2 11y ago

otec 11y ago

Interesting article

Is Clifford Gaddy sponsored by the CIA to discredit Russia? from http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2014/mr-putin-2nd-edition http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2014/mr-putin-2nd-ed... > For anyone wishing to understand Russia’s evolution since the breakup of the Soviet Union and its trajectory since then, the book you hold in your hand is an essential guide. —John McLaughlin, former deputy director of U.S. Central Intelligence Certainly more proof and more intuitively plausible than any theory presented in his article.

blowski 11y ago
Yep. Another article supporting Betteridge's rule.

lolidaisuki 11y ago

It's more likely that the US leaked them and redacted all of the US companies.

noir_lord 11y ago

As long as the stuff in them is true I'm only slightly interested about the source. In fact the ideal arrangement for me as a non-government entity is all the government entities constantly smearing each other. It would be nice to get more of the full picture at least.

dogma1138 11y ago

Nothing in these papers also show anything about me so I must be behind it, you caught me!

madaxe_again 11y ago

A big part of the author's logic is based on the assumption that this was a technically complex, state sponsored hack. This was script-kiddie stuff - it could've been anyone from a teenager in Wisconsin to a couple of channers in Bangkok and Banjul in it for the lulz. Anyway, any speculation on the source is just a distraction from the content.

Dolores12 11y ago
no, its just another angry female assistant downloaded their whole 2.6TB database on her 512gb flash drive.

grokys 11y ago

Or to use the same logic, maybe the lack of Americans implicated in the Panama papers indicates the the US is behind them?

danbruc 11y ago

Not worth reading. Full of prejudices, logically inconsistent, a bit like a conspiracy theory.

meric 11y ago
Government electronic surveillance was once a "conspiracy theory". I'm not comfortable with it being posed as a dirty word.
- danbruc 11y ago
  Maybe the actual extend and details, but US surveillance in Europe was already something the European Parliament investigated in the late 90s. And even then it was no surprise to the people in that area. Snowden added a lot of detail and made the topic a mainstream topic but hardly did he show that a conspiracy theory - which it never was - is in fact true. Within Europe, all email, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by Satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York Moors of the UK. The system was first uncovered in the 1970's by a group of researchers in the UK (Campbell, 1981). Other work on what is now known as Signals intelligence was undertaken by researchers such as James Bamford, which uncovered a billion dollar world wide interceptions network, which he nicknamed 'Puzzle Palace'. A recent work by Nicky Hager, Secret Power, (Hager,1996) provides the most comprehensive details to date of a project known as ECHELON. Hager interviewed more than 50 people concerned with intelligence to document a global surveillance system that stretches around the world to form a targeting system on all of the key Intelsat satellites used to convey most of the world's satellite phone calls, internet, email, faxes and telexes. These sites are based at Sugar Grove and Yakima, in the USA, at Waihopai in New Zealand, at Geraldton in Australia, Hong Kong, and Morwenstow in the UK. The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the cold war, ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country. The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like Memex. to find key words. Five nations share the results with the US as the senior partner under the UKUSA agreement of 1948, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very much acting as subordinate information servicers. European Parliament, 1998, An appraisal of technologies for political control, https://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm https://cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm

goodcanadian 11y ago

In short, I don't know. An article like this is (almost) pure speculation and that's all it can be. However, it is one of the more interesting things I've read about the "Panama papers." Nothing in them is much of a surprise. Don't get me wrong; I'm generally happy about the release, and I hope any blatant criminals are caught and prosecuted. That said, we all knew it was happening.

lolc 11y ago

Pretty entertaining conspiracy theories in there. No single shred of evidence is provided beyond "I think it would make sense for the Russians to do this". This guy seems to be much preoccupied with Russia. Oh wait he's written books about the country. Even if he had proof he wouldn't have a point. There seems to be no end to the parade of people saying how "our" interests are harmed by these publications. If your org is corrupt, I want it to be destabilized. I want you to fear personal exposure.

cm2187 11y ago

This pure, raw speculation.

contemporary2u 11y ago

who released this info and for what reasons exactly will always be the question that i think will never be answered, but lets not forget that information itself seems to be legit. Iceland's PM resignation confirms that, at least partially. Everyone knows that Russia is corrupt up to the top. How? Pretty much every top politician (and their families) in russia own far more than can be purchased on a state salary. Spokes person for Kremlin is spotted wearing 700,000 Euro watch when his official salary is less than 1/10 of that. A lot of Russian government officials and their inner circles own multi-million dollar properties in: London, Spain, New York, Boston etc. Their families live in the west, their kids go to schools in usa and europe... Panama papers disclose how these multi million bribes and shady dealings are accepted and how money is transferred and used to buy up assets overseas. Good old days of a bribe in a suitcase are gone... Its hard to fit $300mil of cash in a suitcase (well Italians would argue lol). IT IS very suspicious that no high profile Americans were caught in this release... It is possible that USA players simply use different entities to set up shell corps and transfer money using different channels.

cm2187 11y ago
Agree, I'd be inclined to think it is either a hacker, or an insider, or a US agency. Putin was at the top of the revelations, even if the news was unsurprising (but like the Snowden documents, it's not because we all suspected it that the proof is any less valuable). If the guy who did it is not US authorities, I would not not sleep well if I was him. The police in London regularly picks up the hung or poisoned bodies of those who dared to attack or expose Putin...
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Top 10 countries that offer financial secrecy, according to the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35998801 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35998801 Switzerland Hong Kong USA Singapore The Cayman Islands Luxembourg Lebanon Germany Bahrain United Arab Emirates Panama seems to be down at the low-rent end of the financial secrecy market. So no - the OP is not only not plausible, but raises more questions than it answers. Practically, I'd expect a Russian hack to specifically target the tax affairs of Putin's enemies. This may yet happen now, with Russian and/or Chinese hackers targeting the tax secrets of prominent Western politicians - which would be an interesting development for everyone.

havetocharge 11y ago

The author is focused on making a case that the Russians are behind the Panama Papers and have an ulterior motive. Not once he mentions that the behaviours the papers expose are criminal or otherwise negative. Even while discussing wrongdoing by Western parties, the Russians are implied to be more villainous.

ci5er 11y ago
> Not once he mentions that the behaviors the papers expose are criminal Are they criminal? Having an offshore company generally isn’t illegal. There may be questions about how some political figures' (for example) funds were obtained in the first place, but the mere existence of funds in some tax-advantaged vehicles is no evidence of a crime. gosh, one would think that some of the funds might be ill-gotten proceeds from criminal enterprises, but if the use of off-shore entities are prima facie evidence of criminal intent, then I'm in trouble.
- havetocharge 11y ago
  There is an 'or' in there. Anyway, I'm not a lawyer or a judge, and the assertion that there is a crime is not related to the point was trying to make.
  - ci5er 11y ago
    > There is an 'or' in there. Fair enough. There was. > Anyway, I'm not a lawyer Are you sure? Your very first sentence sounded very lawyer-like! :-)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

irixusr 11y ago

More speculation that confirms our theory without any evidence. * The theory is "we're good. Anyone we don't like is bad" The evidence collection goes "confirms our theory, it's true." Or " Contradicts it, we either ignore it our dismiss it" Case in point, the unaoil scandal is much more serious than anything in these Panama papers, it involves "the good guys" and it's largely forgotten a week after it release. * ironically enough RT is (was?) pushing the theory that the CIA is behind it because there are no notable American on the list. So it's a KGB/CIA plot because Putin/Americans come out relatively unscathed

grokys 11y ago
Interestingly the Unaoil scandal wasn't even reported by the BBC (except a brief mention on their World Service). I'm interested to know exactly why this scandal on the other hand is being covered so heavily by them and other outlets.
- irixusr 11y ago
  I'm sure if you google it there'll be blurb on their website. But Chomsky points out that appearing impartial is part of the media manipulation. They'll print the juicier bits, but buried deep were few except geeks and junkies like me will read it. Another two techniques that infuriate me: 1. Editing published articles after they are published and making the original unavailable. (Editing should look like word's auto-track feature: in bright red) 2. Not following up on a story after you launched salvos into a person/ideas truth worthiness and they are vindicated
throwaway5752 11y ago
RT is propaganda/psyops on a level that doesn't quite have a Western equivalent. This is not a statement in support of Western journalistic independence and objectivity, so much as it is how carefully packaged/constructed RT is. edit: Hah! Downvotes. I read RT. I read WSJ (even OpEds sometimes, but I don't enjoy it). I read AJ. I read NYT. I read from many sources and high degree of skepticism of all of them. But if you read RT regularly, I doubt you're the one downvoting.

thedevil 11y ago

This reads like propaganda and misses what I consider a big question: why did Putin claim himself as "the main target" when the media wasn't focused on him and there was no evidence really damning him? It just raises questions rather than deflecting them. Putin does not seem so stupid. Why would he do this? It's like getting pulled over for a speeding ticket and saying "I didn't kill him, there's no evidence, this is a plot against me".

formula1 11y ago
Amoungst the first big articles published were revelations about putin's freinds 2 billion in offshore money and China's PM's Suster abd Freind having offshore accounts. But we recieved nothing about america. We have recieved some stuff about the UK but 30k of taxed money is not illegal at all.
losteric 11y ago
Well there was some pretty damning evidence, maybe Putin was hoping western media would blow it up more so he could claim it wasn't him.
sevensor 11y ago
I'm not sure how any of this comes off as bad for Putin. What's the harm in letting the world know that his friends get rich? Combined with what we already know about the effects on life expectancy of being in the opposition, this sends a pretty strong message. "Gold for my friends, lead for my enemies." I see the whole thing as a declaration from Putin to Russia, especially given his protestations. Authoritarian regimes are all about internal social control. Why do we think this has to be about the West?
- thedevil 11y ago
  "I see the whole thing as a declaration from Putin to Russia" After thinking about it, I think you're right on this. I'm evaluating it as bad international PR when it's probably more internal propaganda.

Grue3 11y ago

Well, Putin himself claimed that Panama Papers are "western propaganda" so there's no way for him to spin them as legitimate after that.

throwaway5752 11y ago
Propaganda is not known for or particularly concerned with consistency ('we've always been at war with Eastasia'). I don't know who did this and don't have an opinion personally, but your conclusion (though logical) isn't particularly meaningful for attribution. From what I've observed, the Russian political class is not particularly concerned with hiding financial corruption.

forgetsusername 11y ago

If the information is legitimate, who cares who was behind it? If it was the Russians, why would we look at the leak as "evil" rather than praising them for doing so? Maybe more Americans should be leaking this sort of information.

johnchristopher 11y ago

Now that's funny, this morning radio headlines about the Panama papers were relaying rumors about how it's America behind the divulgation to embarrass Russia and others.

lambdadmitry 11y ago

As a Russian citizen who is following the scandal (and Russian politics), I am a bit baffled by the article. First, all of its reasoning will fall apart if we examine its premises. >there is no evidence of Putin’s direct involvement—not in any company involved in the leak, much less in criminal activity, theft, tax evasion, or money laundering. There are documents showing that some of his “friends” have moved “up to two billion dollars” through these Panama-based shell companies. This isn't true and the author is either deliberately lying or is simply misinformed. What we are talking here are $2b moving through the account in the name of a professional cellist Roldugin. Roldugin is a close friend of Putin and he already denied on record that he owns any big business besides his performances. Those $2b came from various shady deals such as: - an agreement to buy a bunch of Rosneft stocks which is almost immediately terminated, with $750k in punitive damages being paid to a Roldugin's company; - an agreement to collect an outstanding debt of 4 billion roubles (around $50m) from Rostelekom (state-owned telecom company), which cost $1 (yeah, one dollar) to the offshore company; - a shell company providing a debt of $6m to Roldugin's offshore and forgiving it after a few months for $1. A single deal like this is possible but improbable. Two billion dollars of such deals are impossible and they scream "corruption" and "bribe", and there is no single official in Russia that will demand bribes of this order of magnitude except Putin. Even if it's not him, either he is clueless (and the article in question doesn't make sense) or he knows about it and is okay with it (and therefore he is involved). >But nothing in the Panama Papers reveals anything new about Putin. It is in fact far less of a story than has been alleged for a long time. For over 10 years, there have been suspicions that Putin has a vast personal fortune, claimed at first to be $20 billion, then $40, $70, even $100… And now all they find is “maybe” a couple of billion belonging to a friend? This passage implies equality of "allegations" and documents detailing business transactions. I'm not sure if I even need to debunk this, but let's recast it a bit: "It's widely alleged that 9/11 was organized by the government because jet fuel can't melt steel beams. Therefore, documents detailing CIA communication with 9/11 terrorists are nothing new and aren't a big deal". Does it even make sense? >A “friend of Putin” is linked to companies that channel a couple of billion dollars through the offshore companies. Why? To evade Russian taxes? Really? To conceal ownership? From whom? You don’t need an offshore registration to do that. To evade sanctions? That’s a credible reason, but it makes sense only if the companies were registered after mid-2014. Were they? I like how the author waves away "to conceal ownership" part as if it's a non-issue. It's a pretty big deal because every dictator wants to a) have a backup plan and for this, they need a safe and anonymous place to hide their money away from their country and b) pass the money to their children so they can spend them somewhere. It's not like you can just load up trucks with $50 bills in Kremlin. However, in general, Western countries don't exactly support this and see such funds as a lever, so you need a concealment. The rest of the article builds upon this premises, which are false. Therefore, it's all false. Second, what wonders me is the fact that some Westerners are fascinated by Putin and his cronies. It shows up in the way the author speaks about "Russian hacking capabilities" or Putin's implied geopolitical prowess. No, there is nothing to be fascinated about. Those are people who are managed to waste a golden rain of oil money down the drain (just look at the photos of a typical 1m+ Russian city Omsk [1]) while destroying and corrupting every civic institute in the country. It's a typical reactive behavior of a plutocratic rule that got lucky with oil prices and now tries to stay afloat while having no regard for a wellbeing of their own citizens. I don't believe statesmen like this are even remotely worthy of admiration, and yet some do admire them. This is something beyond my understanding. [1]: http://varlamov.ru/1637956.html http://varlamov.ru/1637956.html

jug 11y ago

No way I am believing that. If I'd believe in consoiracies, I'd rather say it is a US leak... The USA is less involved here than Putin's own government. Makes no sense. No, it is no excuse that Putin was already suspected, because these papers are further damaging as solid proof that he is surrounding himself with corruption. Not just rumors.

Cypher 11y ago

meaningless because our reporters are the ones looking at it and will choose what to publish.