Target of the Lava Jato Operation, Mossack Fonseca Brasil Arranged for Stooges and Registers in Tax Havens

04/08/2016 - 10h11

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FELIPE BÄCHTOLD

FROM SÃO PAULO

At the center of a scandal that affected world leaders, the Panamanian office of Mossack Fonseca sold packages of services in Brazil which included the indication of offshore stooge directors and opening physical offices abroad.

Thousands of documents of the company's Brazilian branch were arrested in the Triplo X phase of the Brazilian Federal Police's Lava Jato operation, which began in January but has not led to any court proceedings yet.

In a report Judge Sergio Moro stated that the Brazilian division of the Panamanian office set up offshore companies for those involved in the Petrobras scandal.

On Sunday, April 4, a major leak of Mossack Fonseca documents, nicknamed "Panama Papers," disclosed data of offshore companies which constrained heads of state such as British Prime Minister David Cameron, the president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The information also led to the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland.

Two months prior to the scandal, four employees of the Mossack Fonseca branch in Brazil received arrest warrants after investigations of the Lava Jato operation.

The documents of the Mossack Fonseca branch in Brazil arrested in the Lava Jato operation contained the names of directors who also appear in other companies without any apparent connection. The administrative manager says that those people were Panamanian employees of the office.

The documents arrested during the Lava Jato operation also showed dozens of registration forms of Brazilian clients, including businessmen, lawyers and professionals of the financial market.

Folha news report team did not manage to reach Mossack Fonseca representatives in Brazil. In a release disclosed this week, the company's headquarters in Panama said that it often refused clients who could not prove the origin of their resources and that it avoids "bad use" of its services.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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