Justice Department charges four in its first Panama Papers case

[UpInArms]

Source: Marketwatch

The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced charges against four people relating to the Panama Papers investigation. The Justice Department charged Ramses Owens, Dirk Brauer, Richard Gaffey and Harald von der Goltz with wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering, and other offenses in connection with their roles in what was called a decades-long criminal scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co. Brauer was arrested in Paris, von der Glotz in London and Gaffey in Medfield, Mass., while Owens remains at large. Owens is a 50-year-old Panamanian attorney, Brauer is a 54-year-old German investment manager for Mossfon Asset Management, Gaffey is a 74-year-old U.S.-based accountant and von der Glotz is an 81-year-old German who also was formerly a U.S. resident.

Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/justice-department-charges-four-in-its-first-panama-papers-case-2018-12-04

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Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist

The journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta was killed on Monday in a car bomb near her home.

Daphne Caruana Galizia died on Monday afternoon when her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field.

A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state.

Her most recent revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan.

Maybe, someday, there will be justice for Daphne.