Don’t these people remind you of yourself? OR Why the Panama Papers COULD work in our favour

Today, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released names of people connected to offshore accounts managed by Mossack Fonseca, the firm in question regarding the “Panama Papers.” From the moment I heard about this, I felt there was a strong possibility we could turn this bombshell to our advantage by emphasizing three facts:
 

  1. We have legitimate accounts in the countries we live in regardless of whether the US considers them “foreign”

    2.  

  2. We are strong contrasts (i.e., tax compliant/law abiding as demonstrated in our countries of residence) to those named in this debacle

    3.  

  3. Unlike those linked to Mossack Fonseca and specific criminal activity, there is nothing whatsoever to suggest those with US taint, living in their (“foreign”) country of residence, have done anything wrong

    4.  

No big thoughts here or grand revelations. Just three simple distinctions to be made and repeated over and over, until those who are so thick they cannot see past a cliché finally wake up. Doesn’t matter whether they are dishonest politicians/civil servants or your not-so-favourite Auntie in the States. They all are wrong, period. Maybe we just haven’t “come into our time yet” – i.e., we get it and have been fighting it but the rest of the world is just now catching up to us. We must keep this up. Part of the “given” in “what’s right always wins” is staying the course until “the wind blows your way.”

Prof. Haydon Perryman outlines of few of these folks here.

  • LEONARD GOTSHALK, an ex-NFL player with a history of making borrowed money disappear
  • MARTIN FRANKEL, an American fraudster reportedly caught abroad with 547 diamonds and nine fake passports
  • JOHN KNIGHT, an aspiring arms dealer who once negotiated with the genocidal Sudanese regime
  • MARY PATTEN, a Florida-based individual played a “crucial role” in an investment scam
  • SEMION MOGILEVICH, who earned a place on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted involved in weapons trafficking, contract murders, extortion, drug trafficking, and prostitution on an international scale
  • MARLLORY DADIANA CHACON ROSSELL, one of the most prolific narcotics traffickers in Central America
  • ROBERT MIRACLE, architect of an alleged Ponzi scheme, telling his investors he’d worked at NASA and Disney, and that his companies were producing oil and gas in Indonesia
  • ‘THE DUTCHMAN’, target of a drug bust in Rotterdam, where Dutch authorities discovered more than 1.5 tons of cocaine smuggled in a shipment of asparagus

I mean, I recognize Brockers, Sandboxers, Homelanders Abroad and all other sorts of expat behaviour in the descriptions of the above. NOT.

After reading the charming resumes of these people, I then came across these tweets:

Seriously, here is a condor (sorry, this applies here) scaring people into thinking they cannot find the highest amount in an account and put it on a piece of paper. They need a LAWYER standing by, to ensure their safety. &*)$&F%VB!!! My accountant told me at the very beginning, that she did not do FUBARs. I asked her if it was due to concerns of liability. She said “No, it just didn’t make any sense for anyone to pay her $125 an hour to do what anyone with common sense and Grade 5 Math could do on their own.” Glad to see somebody calling out this vulture……….

And then our friend Elizabeth Thompson , at iPolitics, keeps the pressure on, so-to-speak, by reporting Minister Goodale’s statement “that the RCMP and other Canadian police forces (possibly even CSIS) will be poring over the Panama Papers data released Monday, searching for possible connections to criminal activity.”

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale during QP today:

“Now that it is in the public domain it will be possible for all the appropriate authorities, including the revenue agency and the RCMP, potentially other police forces to take a look at it and determine whether or not it reveals behaviour that ought to be further investigated.”

The database became available around 2 pm today, just in time for Question Period. There were questions and a call for an investigation into the deal between the CRA (that more reasonable “protector” of Canadian citizens’ personal financial information, thus the IGA) and KPMG, condor firm extraordinaire, who set up offshore accounts in the well-known tax haven of the Isle of Man so tax cheats could avoid declaring income.

Our friend NDP MP Peter Julian during QP today:

“The reality is, Canadians are implicated in the Panama papers , including the former boss of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage,” said .

“The government’s words are empty unless it is willing to actually charge people guilty of tax evasion and those aiding and abetting these tax cheats. With the release today of many more names from the largest offshore tax avoidance scandal in history, why is the government still refusing to launch an investigation into the KPMG tax scandal?”

It seems to me, that we need to keep the pressure up the same as Elizabeth Thompson, Peter Julian etc, are doing. Three simple facts. Over and over and over again. Keep at the letter writing. Keep trying to find the witnesses. Keep calling out the idiots on the articles. Keep calling out condors. Keep reaching out whereever it makes sense. Maybe somebody powerful will come along right when we need it……….