Legal
Panama Raids Mossack Fonseca Over Suspected Bribery Scandal

Mossack Fonsenca was embroiled in last year's Panama Papers scandal after millions of documents leaked from the firm exposed a multitude of tax evaders, some of whom were national leaders and politicians.
Panamanian authorities have raided the offices of Mossack Fonseca, the
law firm at the epicentre of the infamous “Panama Papers”
scandal, pursuing possible links to Brazilian engineering
organization Odebrecht.
“Raid of offices of law firm that created limited liability
companies in Brazil liked to #LavaJato #PanamaPapers,” the
attorney general's office said on Twitter last week, failing
to provide further details.
The Panama Papers, comprised of millions of stolen documents from
Mossack Fonseca and leaked to the media in April last year,
sparked global controversy after they shone a light on how
the rich and powerful, including national leaders and
politicians, used offshore companies to evade taxes. (To see some
commentary about the issues raised by the leak, click
here.)
Ramon Fonseca, a partner at Mossack Fonseca, reportedly denied
that his firm had an affiliation with Odebrecht, which has
previously admitted to bribing officials in Panama and other
countries to obtain government contracts.
“Mossack Fonseca has no relationship with Odebrecht, nor with any
other Lava Jato company,” Mr Fonseca was quoted as saying in
numerous media reports, referring to firms involved in the
so-called Lava Jato investigation into Brazil's state-run oil
company Petróleo Brasileiro.
“They're using me to divert attention,” he reportedly said.
Mr Fonseca also reportedly accused Panama's President, Juan
Carlos Varela, of having directly received money from Odebrecht,
which is the largest engineering company in Latin America.