Panama Papers: Offshore Assets of World Leaders Revealed by Leak

What Is Mossack Fonseca Group?

• Mossack Fonseca Group

• Who: Firm was founded by Jurgen Mossack, who was born in Germany in 1948, and Ramon Fonseca, who was born in Panama in 1952

• When: Established in 1977; became Mossack Fonseca in 1986, when the two men merged their law firms

• What: A global company that provides comprehensive legal, trust and wealth management services. Incorporates and administers companies in offshore jurisdictions such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands and Malta, as well as in the U.S. states of Nevada and Wyoming.

• Where: Located in Panama

• Global presence: Considered the fourth-largest provider of offshore services

• Response to Panama Papers: Firm declined to comment on specific allegations, citing client confidentiality, but said it acted responsibly and complied with international protocols, saying, “The companies we incorporate are not being used for tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing or other illicit purposes." However, they added, "We regret any misuse of our services and actively take steps to prevent it.”

Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson with his wife Anna Sigurlaug Palsdottir. Gunnlaugsson owned a 50 per cent stake in offshore firm Wintris for more than two years, then transferred it to Pálsdottir, who held the other 50 per cent, for

one dollar

Under pressure: Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting today hours after it emerged his inner circle and a 'dirty dozen' list of world leaders are using offshore tax havens to hide their

wealth

The families of some of China's top communist brass — including President Xi Jinping — used offshore tax havens to conceal their

fortunes, a treasure trove of leaked documents has revealed.

• At least eight current or former members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the ruling Communist Party's most powerful body, have been implicated, highlighting the hot-button issue of wealth among China's ruling elite.

• The eight are among 140 political figures around the world alleged to have links to offshore accounts, after an investigation into the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

• They include Xi's brother-in-law Deng Jiagui, who in 2009 – when his famous relation was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee but not yet president – set up two British Virgin Islands companies.

• Xi has been dogged by foreign media reports of great family wealth. The claims are ignored by mainstream Chinese outlets, and their publication on the Internet in China is supressed.

• In 2012 the Bloomberg news agency published investigations into the vast wealth said to have been amassed by Xi's family, revealing that Deng and his wife had accumulated several hundred million dollars in company shares and property assets.

• Since becoming president that same year, Xi has staked his reputation on pushing for transparency by initiating a vast anti-graft campaign to clean the party's ranks of corruption and to reassert his authority.

• The daughter of former premier Li Peng – who was in power from 1987 to 1998 – was also identified in the documents.

• They revealed that Li Xiaolin, the former vice president of state-run power company China Power Investment Corporation, was the beneficiary of a Liechtenstein foundation controlling a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands during the period when her father was in office.

• A granddaughter of Jia Qinglin, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Li Xiaolin was also the sole shareholder in several offshore companies, through which she discretely controlled companies within China.

• The so-called "Panama Papers" were obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with media worldwide by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

• They come two years after an ICIJ investigation identified nearly 22 000 offshore clients from mainland China and Hong Kong, including relatives of former president Hu Jintao, former premier Li Peng and late leader Deng Xiaoping, the man credited with opening up China's economy in the 1980s.

Revelation: The so-called Panama Papers, part of a leak of 11million files, also implicate associates of Syria's president

Bashar al-Assad

King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud (pictured left) was also named

Argentina's president Mauricio Macri (left) and Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko (right) were listed

UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (pictured centre) is one of the world leaders named

Families and associates of Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak (pictured left), Libya's former leader Muammar

Gaddafi (right) were also implicated in the data leak

Former Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (pictured) is also named in the data release

Former prime minister of Jordan Ali Abu al-Ragheb (left) and former president of Sudan Ahmad Ali al-Mirghani (right) were both listed in the

leaked confidential documents

Convicted former Ukraine prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko (left) and former prime minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili (right) are among those revealed to have offshore accounts

The ex-prime minister of Iraq Ayad Allawi (pictured) is also said to have benefited from using tax havens

Named: The world's best footballer Lionel Messi, left, and martial arts star Jackie Chan have used Mossack Fonseca's

services to set up offshore companies

The Prime Minister's late father Ian Cameron (right) was named in a huge leak of millions of documents exposing the

use of offshore tax regimes by the world's richest people

Lord Ashcroft (left), Baroness Pamela Sharples and former Tory MP Michael Mates (right) are among the

British politicians also named in the data release

Revealed: Cash from the notorious Brink's Mat heist at Heathrow in 1983 may have been moved offshire

by the Panamanian Law Firm

Hunt for the cash: Police have for years searched for the money, pictured here in 2001, 18 years after the heist, digging

up land in east London

The so-called Panama Papers implicate those in Russian president Vladimir Putin's inner circle. This graphic shows how Putin's best friend Sergei Roldugin, who owns 3.2 per cent of Bank Rossiya, and the man who heads the bank up, Yuri Kovalchuk, are linked to a trail which has seen money moved offshore

via Swiss lawyers, Mossack Fonseca, and a subsidiary of Russia's state-owned VTB bank in Cyprus to a firm set up in the British Virgin Islands called Sandalwood Continental Ltd. Money was then lent to Ozon, which

owns the private Igora ski resort outside St Petersburg, the place where Putin's daughter Katya got married

International operations: Mossack Fonseca lists 37 offices in countries around the world (pictured above) but only a handful of addresses are listed, including those for their

Amsterdam branch (pictured), Asian headquarters in Hong Kong, and head office in Panama

Global reach: Mossack Fonseca has its headquarters

in this building in Panama City, Panama, pictured

This building in Amsterdam is one of the office addresses listed on the Mossack Fonseca website