(Panama City) A judge has acquitted 28 people accused of money laundering in an international case known as the “Panama Papers,” including the co-founder of a law firm that authorities say was at the center of a conspiracy to hide money linked to illegal activities.
Jürgen Mossack founded Mossack Fonseca with his partner Ramón Fonseca, who died in May. Mr. Mossack was acquitted along with others on Friday after a Panamanian judge ruled that the evidence against Mr. Mossack did not comply with the chain of custody after authorities raided the company’s office today now gone.
Prosecutors had accused Mr. Mossack, Mr. Fonseca and others of setting up foreign companies and using complex transactions to hide money from illegal activities related to the so-called car-wash bribery scandal involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. The company pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to a charge related to using shell companies to hide millions of dollars in bribes paid around the world to win government contracts.
The judge noted that other evidence in the Panama Papers case “was not sufficient and conclusive to determine the criminal responsibility of the accused.”
In addition, the judge lifted the personal and financial precautionary measures against all the defendants, according to a judicial statement.
“We feel satisfied amid mixed emotions because many lives have been affected along the way,” Guillermina Mc Donald, who was Mr. Mossack and Mr. Fonseca’s lawyer, told The Associated Press Press. His company also represented 80% of the employees of the accused company.
Judge Balaoisa Marquínez decided to combine the Panama Papers case with another case known as Operation Car Wash, a major anti-corruption investigation that began in Brazil.
On Friday, it ruled that in the car wash case, “it was not possible to determine the entry into the Panamanian financial system of money from illicit sources, originating in Brazil, with the aim of hiding, concealing, disguising or helping to evade the legal consequences of the previous offense.”
In June 2022, Mr. Mossack, Mr. Fonseca and 37 others were acquitted in a separate money-laundering case.
The investigation in Brazil began in 2014, and Mossack Fonseca was subsequently put under surveillance after 11 million financial documents linked to the company were leaked.
The fallout from the leak was far-reaching: it led to the resignation of a prime minister in Iceland and focused attention on former leaders of Argentina and Ukraine, Chinese politicians and Russian President Vladimir Putin, among others.