INTERNATIONAL BANKS HID THEIR DODGY CLIENTS NAMES, DEALT DIRECT WITH MOSSACK FONSECA

M & F

Some of the fallout from the Panama Papers disclosures is quite instructive. It appears that many of the world's largest international financial institutions did business with Mossack and Fonseca, and some deliberately shielded their clients from being identified to Mossack staff. As the window is opened upon a number of individuals that, for sanctions or other legitimate compliance reasons, even Mossack might have a problem servicing, we learn, from a few admissions, precisely how it is done.

I am not surprised; when the Pinochet corruption scandal broke, and it was revealed that General Pinochet, and his Chilean attorney, were able to maintain corporate accounts in US banks, after details became public knowledge, I asked a major international law firm how they could have provided company formation services to such known corrupt individuals. A partner at the firm personally showed me how they did not even know that Pinochet was using their companies: they were formed for the Pinochet family banks in the US, and those banks has merely said that the client was a "valued customer of the bank," and offered no details.

 The law firm was in the dark, and Pinochet got his corporate shield. You know which Miami bank I am referring to, I trust. Here's a hint; it now operates under another name.

Therefore, expect some really nasty information to continue to come out of the future Panama Papers release of data, for some of the worst clients were well hidden, even from the amoral corporate formation specialists at Mossack, who might have taken their rare step, to decline a customer's business, had they known who it was.