Ride the Lightning

Panama Papers Leak: IT Employee Detained in Switzerland

June 20, 2016

This story just keeps getting more and more complex. After chuckling over the fact that even shredded papers were seized during the government raid on Mossack Fonseca's law firm in Panama, along comes news from the Business Standard that the law firm has demanded and is expecting the prosecution of an IT worker from its Geneva office detained on suspicion of stealing company documents.

Mossack Fonseca has also said that it has lodged complaints in several jurisdictions against people believed to be "involved in the theft of information that occurred in our company". As readers of RTL will remember, that reference was to the leak of nearly four decades of the law firm's data. The law firm specialized in setting up offshore companies – not illegal in and of itself – but allegedly some activities involved avoiding taxes, evading sanctions and money laundering.

Last Wednesday, Swiss authorities announced that an information technology employee for the law firm working in its Geneva office had been placed in provisional detention on suspicion of stealing confidential documents.

While it is still too early to determine exactly what was done and by whom, John and I have always thought that the assistance of at least one insider was likely, although the news reports indicate that the person arrested was not the person who directly leaked the data. Stay tuned – this drama is sure to have many chapters.

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