What they uncovered became the Panama Papers, a sweeping investigation that broke open the secretive world of finance and exposed how the rich and powerful use offshore structures to protect wealth and dodge scrutiny.

This is the final part in a series that explores how it all came together, drawing on the recollections of the journalists whose reporting sparked a global reckoning over financial secrecy and its consequences. Read parts one and two, or revisit the Panama Papers investigation in its entirety.

The high view

Marina Walker Guevara (United States)
Then: Deputy director, ICIJ | Now: Executive editor, Pulitzer Center

At 2 p.m. on April 3, 2016, when the first Panama Papers stories started publishing, Marina Walker Guevara was somewhere over the United States, suspended between time zones and cut off from the political tremors that had already begun.

She was traveling home from a family wedding in San Francisco, wondering how the stories would land and whether anyone would care.

The answers came quickly.

The plane had barely touched down in Washington when Walker Guevara turned on her phone. Messages surged in faster than she could open them.

“I had to catch my breath,” recalled Walker Guevara, an Argentine journalist who is now executive editor of the Pulitzer Center.

The world was absorbing the secrets she’d guarded for more than a year — details that were about to spark protests, topple world leaders and ignite criminal investigations.

Within the first hours and days, angry crowds gathered in Reykjavík and London, governments from Panama to Pakistan scrambled to issue denials, and all the while presses were still running, printing story after story about the global mix of politicians, financiers and celebrities whose financial dealings spanned jurisdictions.

Watching it all unfold, Walker Guevara began to understand the gravity of what this global team had achieved.

“This is much bigger than anything we thought,” she recalled. “This is truly a story about systemic inequity.”

Naming the untouchable

Moussa Aksar (Niger)
Founder and editor, L’Evenement

When L’Evenement published the Panama Papers, the paper’s founder and editor Moussa Aksar knew there would be consequences. The coverage named a powerful financier closely tied to the country’s ruling elite — “un intouchable,” Aksar said recently in his native French. An untouchable.

The reaction came quickly. L’Evenement sold out within hours. Another print run was needed. Aksar felt satisfaction — until he thought of his three children and unease took over.

Aksar had just told the world that a major political donor had used an offshore company to move revenue from his bus company into tax havens.

The calls began the morning of publication. First, a warning from a friend who admired his courage and urged him to be careful.

Then came calls from people he did not know. Threats. Each time the phone rang, the risk felt less abstract. In Niger, reprisals rarely stop with the journalist alone.

Journalist Moussa Aksar stands at the entrance to his newspaper, L’Evenement, in Niger. Image: L'Evenement

Aksar’s work was attacked in other newspapers. His motives were questioned. He was accused of serving Western interests — a dangerous charge in a fragile democracy.

His children — two teenagers and a 9-year-old — wondered if it was worth it. Aksar remembers them struggling to understand why he was, as he put it, sacrificing himself for an ungrateful society.

A decade later, Aksar says, they no longer ask why he took the risk. They’re proud of his reputation as a journalist who ensures that even les intouchables aren’t beyond the reach of scrutiny.

Defending the documents

Minna Knus-Galán (Finland)
Investigative reporter, Yle

As the Panama Papers shook governments around the world, one of the fiercest fights played out not in an authoritarian state, but in a country that routinely tops global press freedom rankings: Finland.

ICIJ member Minna Knus-Galán and her colleagues at the Finnish public broadcaster Yle found themselves fighting their own government’s tax authority’s threats of raids on their homes and newsroom unless they surrendered leaked documents.

Knus-Galán had just produced some of Finland’s most explosive findings from the leak: that Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the Panama Papers, had worked with Nordea, the Nordic region’s biggest bank, to establish hundreds of offshore companies, backdate documents and register deceased individuals as company directors to conceal the true owners.

The government argued it needed access to the Panama Papers material to investigate tax evasion by Finns named in the files.

I don’t know what the Finnish tax authorities thought — that we would have the Panama Papers in a [pile] on our desks?

Compliance, Yle countered, would violate source protection and shatter the trust that made cross-border collaboration possible. If one newsroom could be forced to surrender leaked material, whistleblowers might stay silent and future investigations could be jeopardized, Knus-Galán said.

“I don’t think we could do more ICIJ projects after that if there’s this risk,” she said.

The standoff spilled into reporters’ personal lives, too.  When a demand from Finland’s tax authority arrived at Knus-Galán’s home, it felt intimidating — an official threat breaking into her private space. Over dinner, she told her teenagers there was a small but real chance police might burst in and seize their computers. Her son, a budding tech whiz, worried: would they take his machine, too?

For all the pressure, there were no documents in her house or her newsroom for authorities to seize. The files were safe on ICIJ’s secure platform.

“I don’t know what the Finnish tax authorities thought — that we would have the Panama Papers in a [pile] on our desks?” Knus Galán said.

Finnish journalist Minna Knus-Galan speaks at a September 2016 meeting of European Parliament’s PANA Committee, which was convened in the wake of the Panama Papers. Image: Jan van de Vel / European Parliament

Partner journalists never possessed the data themselves. It was stored in the cloud. Reporters could log in to search the files, and ICIJ could cut off access at any time. By design, no single newsroom controlled the files — a safeguard that protected both the material and the investigation.

Still, the demand alone was a threat to press freedom. If authorities could compel journalists to hand over confidential material, it would compromise the independence that protects sources and hamstring future investigations.

Knus-Galán said the letter was “very, very stressful and super strange” — the kind of threat she expected colleagues in Russia might face, not reporters in Helsinki, which was, at the time, preparing to host World Press Freedom Day. “I was sort of thinking, this can’t be happening in Finland.”

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/watch-the-panama-papers-at-10-live-panel-event/

VIDEO WATCH: The Panama Papers at 10 live panel event Apr 02, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ten-years-after-the-panama-papers-enablers-and-tax-cheats-are-still-being-brought-to-justice/

IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026

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IMPACT Judge orders Nazi-looted Modigliani linked to Panama Papers be returned to heirs Apr 06, 2026

Recommended reading VIDEO WATCH: The Panama Papers at 10 live panel event Apr 02, 2026 IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026 IMPACT Judge orders Nazi-looted Modigliani linked to Panama Papers be returned to heirs Apr 06, 2026

A decade later, that discussion hasn’t ended.

“It fueled the demand for more transparency in financial markets,” Stiglitz said, “but the issues, sadly, have not be solved. They are still before us — and in some ways, even more so.”

Our reporting in 2025 showed how often they don’t — and who pays the price when they fail.

Across investigations that spanned continents, ICIJ and its partners found that the harm we exposed didn’t come from broken systems alone. In many cases, ordinary processes worked exactly as intended. Paperwork was processed, transactions were approved and rules were followed — even as they enabled human suffering, repression, financial crime and sanctions evasion.

Read ICIJ’s 2025 annual report

In our China Targets investigation, we documented how Beijing authorities aggressively pursued its perceived enemies across borders, following them into countries that the dissidents had thought would protect them. We examined Interpol notices, United Nations forums and law enforcement requests that appeared routine on paper but carried devastating consequences for victims, who described relentless threats, pressure and intimidation that jeopardized their safety, livelihoods and families.

In The Coin Laundry, reporters exposed how cryptocurrency platforms and payment processors became gateways for scams and money laundering. Victims lost their life savings through systems designed for speed and profit, where warnings were weak, oversight was fragmented and accountability was optional. The exchanges processed vast volumes of high-risk transactions while both public and private safeguards failed to keep pace with the scale and speed of abuse.

And in Damascus Dossier, we traced how Syria’s bureaucratic detention system reduced mass murder to routine paperwork — and how international sanctions and accountability mechanisms failed to disrupt it.

Together, these ICIJ investigations show how ordinary systems that citizens rely on for protection — financial, institutional and governmental — were manipulated and exploited to help the powerful and malfeasant avoid accountability.

https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2025/10/icij-members-and-partners-honored-with-cabot-prize/

AWARDS ICIJ members and partners honored with top journalism prize Oct 09, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/the-story-that-rocked-the-world-ten-years-of-the-panama-papers-part-1/

BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026

https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2025/01/explore-the-latest-tool-to-power-up-investigations-via-the-offshore-leaks-database/

DATA JOURNALISM Explore the latest tool to power up investigations via the Offshore Leaks database Jan 14, 2025

Recommended reading AWARDS ICIJ members and partners honored with top journalism prize Oct 09, 2025 BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026 DATA JOURNALISM Explore the latest tool to power up investigations via the Offshore Leaks database Jan 14, 2025

New York Supreme Court judge Joel M. Cohen ruled that the 1918 painting “Seated Man with a Cane” be returned to the estate of Oscar Stettiner, a British-born Jewish art dealer who operated out of Paris in the 1930s.

The ruling brought to an end an 11-year court battle first begun by Stettiner’s grandson.

Judge Cohen found that the oil painting was the same piece that was confiscated during the German occupation of France from the Paris art shop of Stettiner, who died in France in 1948.

In his ruling, Judge Cohen rejected arguments by Lebanese-born Jewish art dealer David Nahmad and his holding company, International Art Center, S.A., which purchased the painting at auction in 1996, that inconsistencies in the artwork’s provenance created doubt over the Stettiner’s claims.

Lawyers for the Nahmads had also denied the family held possession of the painting, which had been kept hidden in a Swiss freeport, and instead pointed towards the holding company, International Art Center S.A. as the painting’s owner. But secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung as part of the Panama Papers investigation showed that International Art Center S.A. — a company registered by law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama — had been controlled by the Nahmad family for more than 20 years.

https://www.icij.org/news/2025/08/new-us-bill-aims-to-clamp-down-on-money-laundering-through-art-holdings/

OFFSHORE New US bill aims to clamp down on money laundering through art holdings Aug 08, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/cambodian-blood-antiquities-documentary-draws-on-icijs-pandora-papers-reporting/

Art Cambodian ‘blood antiquities’ documentary draws on ICIJ’s Pandora Papers reporting Apr 09, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/met-taps-sothebys-executive-to-lead-new-provenance-research-team/

IMPACT Met taps Sotheby’s executive to lead new provenance research team Mar 27, 2024

Recommended reading OFFSHORE New US bill aims to clamp down on money laundering through art holdings Aug 08, 2025 Art Cambodian ‘blood antiquities’ documentary draws on ICIJ’s Pandora Papers reporting Apr 09, 2025 IMPACT Met taps Sotheby’s executive to lead new provenance research team Mar 27, 2024

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ten-years-after-the-panama-papers-enablers-and-tax-cheats-are-still-being-brought-to-justice/

IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/video/

VIDEO Victims of Offshore: A Video Introduction to the Panama Papers Apr 03, 2016

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/cracking-the-veil-of-secrecy-ten-years-of-the-panama-papers-part-2/

BEHIND THE SCENES Behind the veil of secrecy: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 2 Apr 02, 2026

Recommended reading IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026 VIDEO Victims of Offshore: A Video Introduction to the Panama Papers Apr 03, 2016 BEHIND THE SCENES Behind the veil of secrecy: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 2 Apr 02, 2026

To mark the anniversary, ICIJ Executive Director Gerard Ryle and international tax justice expert Tove Maria Ryding held a live, virtual conversation about how the investigation unfolded, the reforms it triggered and why the struggle for transparency is far from over.

Watch this recording of the live event, and to secure your invitation to future events, please subscribe to ICIJ’s newsletter or consider making a donation to support our work.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/the-story-that-rocked-the-world-ten-years-of-the-panama-papers-part-1/

BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ten-years-after-the-panama-papers-enablers-and-tax-cheats-are-still-being-brought-to-justice/

IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/cracking-the-veil-of-secrecy-ten-years-of-the-panama-papers-part-2/

BEHIND THE SCENES Behind the veil of secrecy: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 2 Apr 02, 2026

Recommended reading BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026 IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026 BEHIND THE SCENES Behind the veil of secrecy: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 2 Apr 02, 2026

What they uncovered became the Panama Papers, a sweeping investigation that broke open the secretive world of finance and exposed how the rich and powerful use offshore structures to protect wealth and dodge scrutiny.

This is part two in a three-part series that explores how it all came together, drawing on the recollections of the journalists whose reporting sparked a global reckoning over financial secrecy and its consequences. Catch up on part one here, and read part three here.

The rabbit hole

Anuška Delić (Slovenia)
Then: Investigative reporter, Delo | Now: Founder and editor-in-chief, Oštro

At her desk in Delo’s open newsroom, Anuska Delić kept her back to the window and her work to herself.

An old-school reporter, she routinely printed documents and read them with a pen in hand and Post-its close by. But the Panama Papers weren’t something you printed — not if you were trying to keep to the secrecy rules that held together a massive journalistic collaboration.

When Delić opened the database for the first time, she did what every reporter on the project did. She searched home.

“Slovenia.”

The database returned about 4,000 hits – manageable, compared to the thousands that swamped reporters from bigger countries. She realized quickly that she could probably examine every reference.

What she didn’t know yet was that she was pregnant.

She had been invited to join the project in early summer 2015. Two weeks later, she learned she was expecting a child. Her son would be born the following March, two weeks before publication.

“It was a crazy time,” remembers Delić, who now leads Oštro, an Adriatic investigative journalism center she founded after leaving Delo.

Before it was called the Panama Papers, the investigation was known by a codename — Project Prometheus. Image: Kristof Clerix

On one side of her life was the biggest investigation she would ever work on. On the other, the realities of pregnancy — exhaustion, medical checkups and the constant awareness that a new life was growing.

At first, the database research felt exhilarating.

“It was like Alice in Wonderland — going down the rabbit hole,” she said.

The files were messy. Attachments sometimes mattered and sometimes didn’t. In the beginning, she opened everything, trying to understand how the system worked.

“Almost everything I saw was like, ‘Oh! What is this? What could this be?” she said.

Then one day, the project took a turn into new, unexpected territory.

A name jumped out: Dejan Zavec. The renowned boxer – also known as Jan Zaveck and Mister Simpatikus — had grown up poor and become one of Slovenia’s most admired athletes. And now Delić saw he had established an offshore offshore company in Anguilla.

These weren’t just distant oligarchs or anonymous businessmen.

“Of all people, I had to find the darling of the public,” Delić said. “That was the end of the honeymoon phase for me.”

She began the slow work of figuring out what Zavec’s company did and why it existed.

“Just finding someone in the documents isn’t enough,” Delić said. “Just because people would be interested doesn’t make it public interest.”

She learned that Zavec had established a company, ABC Agency, in Anguilla. The company took over his Slovenian firm, Boksing, which held the real estate for his gym, allowing assets to be moved through a tax haven before ultimately being transferred to another company he controlled.

Zavec initially denied owning ABC but later he acknowledged that he had founded it and had not reported it to tax authorities.

Just because people would be interested doesn’t make it public interest.

By then, the scale of the project had become clear. Hundreds of reporters around the world were digging through the same trove of records, chasing threads across borders, time zones and languages.

At night, the baby had a habit of hiccuping in utero — not briefly, but for stretches that could last more than an hour, keeping Delić awake at odd hours.

Sleep was impossible.

“So you know what I did?” she said.

“I looked through Panama Papers.”

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/ten-years-after-the-panama-papers-enablers-and-tax-cheats-are-still-being-brought-to-justice/

IMPACT Ten years after the Panama Papers, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Apr 02, 2026

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BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026

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IMPACT How the Panama Papers rocked pop culture Apr 03, 2023

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“He was telling me directly to my face that such a behavior would be completely illegal,” Obermaier recalled. “And for me, I’m not a good actor, so it was really hard to not say ‘I know that it is you who has done exactly that.’”

The moment landed like a jolt: the system calling itself illegal.

The second encounter was miles away in every sense.

Obermaier had seen the name Leticia Montoya more times than he could count. She was named as a director of thousands of companies that surfaced in the leaked documents.

Following the paper trail led Obermaier to a tiny house in an impoverished neighborhood with rubbish burning in the streets.

Montoya wasn’t home when he visited, but he briefly spoke to her later by phone.

No, she didn’t know what the companies did or who owned them. She told Obermaier to direct his queries to the registered agent — Mossack Fonseca. Then she hung up.

In Panama, the paper trail suddenly felt unmistakably human.

Mossack Fonseca’s Panama City headquarters, to the right. Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Messages in the night

Ritu Sarin (India)
Executive editor (news and investigations), The Indian Express

It was late and Ritu Sarin had finally gone to bed.

After eight months of logging documents and scanning files alongside two colleagues, the Indian Express’s senior editor was tired.

“There was no Saturday and Sunday,” she recalled. “Morning to night in the office for Panama Papers for months.”

Moments in between were filled with text message exchanges with P. Vaidyanathan Iyer and Jay Mazoomdaar, teammates pursuing their own leads in the data.

That night, just a few days before the agreed-to publication date, the work followed her home, as it often did. She remembered something she’d seen earlier that day on I-Hub,  the digital newsroom ICIJ created so journalists could share information securely.

“Things were rolling very fast and the momentum had built up,” Sarin said.

Indian Express investigative reporters P Vaidyanathan Iyer, Ritu Sarin, Jay Mazoomdaar at work in India. Image: Indian Express

With 370 collaborators across multiple time zones and publication day approaching, messages had been streaming in faster than journalists could read them, 24 hours a day. Sarin tried to keep up, but it was impossible.

Hours earlier, Umar Cheema, an ICIJ member a thousand miles away in Pakistan, had flagged the name Aishwarya Rai.

“I had gone to sleep,” Sarin said. “And suddenly it struck me — hey, there was a message about an Indian actress.”

Indian Express editors already had more stories planned than they could reasonably launch on Day One of the project — and even those would be squeezed if India’s cricket team made it to the T20 World Cup final. Win or lose, in a country where cricket is king, the match would dominate the front page.

A single document was like a treasure trove where there were attachments inside attachments.

Sarin immediately went back to I-Hub, opened the dataset and began following the trail.

An old-school reporter who prefers paper, Sarin started printing. The stacks on her bookshelf grew, spilling out of plastic folders she struggled to keep organized. Documents had a way of multiplying.

“A single document was like a treasure trove where there were attachments inside attachments,” she said.

As the pages piled up, Sarin started connecting the dots. The records pointed to Rai’s role as a director of Amic Partners, an offshore company Mossack Fonseca created in the British Virgin Islands.

(Rai’s media adviser at the time called the information “totally untrue and false,” but Indian authorities would later open a civil investigation into her financial affairs.)

The calendar was unforgiving. Publication was days away and Sarin’s team was still gathering comments from other figures named in their reporting — Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and some of India’s most powerful business leaders.

“Here was another very important story,” Sarin said. “It was very evident it’s going to make it to page one on Day One, and it did.”

Image: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

In Washington or London, those kinds of letters were standard. Not in Moscow.

Russia was a place where journalists who crossed powerful interests could lose more than access. Partners there were worried. For safety, they wanted to be out of the country when Putin saw the letter and when publication day came, and they needed time to make arrangements.

Normally, ICIJ allows several weeks for responses but with grave security concerns , the usual timeline got compressed. Putin’s letter was sent just a week before publication.

The response was swift – and unexpectedly public.

The Kremlin called a press conference, accusing ICIJ of preparing an “information attack” aimed at disrupting upcoming elections.

This was the first time the upcoming investigation had been mentioned publicly. The secrecy that held together 376 journalists had been pierced.

“That sent panic through everybody,” Ryle said.

But as the day unfolded, something else became clear.

The Kremlin meant it as a preemptive strike: discredit the messenger before the news landed. Instead, the very act meant to discredit the project signaled that it mattered. And now the world was waiting for it.

“It really began to build interest in what we were about to do,” Ryle said.

The Kremlin had tried to cast the project as a targeted political assault. Instead, it confirmed that the story was big enough to rattle power.

But the Panama Papers was never just a Russian story, and Putin wasn’t the only world leader about to face global scrutiny.

This is part two of a three-part series; read part one here, and part three here. Subscribe to ICIJ’s newsletter to receive news updates direct to your inbox.

Panama Papers turns 10

On the tenth anniversary of the groundbreaking investigation, ICIJ and its partners have looked back on how the massive collaboration came together, and the impact the stories continue to have today. Read more:

part one

part two

part three

A decade on, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice

How the Panama Papers marked a turning point for transparency

Gerard Ryle and Tove Maria Ryding discuss the Panama Papers effect

Read the story that started it all

Panama Papers and the victims of offshore

The story that rocked the world: Behind the scenes of the Panama Papers — part one, part two, part three Ten years of impact: A decade on, enablers and tax cheats are still being brought to justice Video overview: How the Panama Papers marked a turning point for transparency Live panel: Gerard Ryle and Tove Maria Ryding discuss the Panama Papers effect Original investigation: Read the story that started it all (2016) Video introduction: Panama Papers and the victims of offshore (2016)

“In the end, I accept the consequences,” his lawyers told the courtroom on his behalf at the March hearing.

For Christoph Zollinger, a dual Swiss-Panamanian citizen and former partner at Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca now facing charges of facilitating tax evasion, those consequences have been more than 10 years in the making.

Zollinger’s alleged crimes were revealed by the landmark Panama Papers investigation, and the trial in Cologne has been hailed as a testament to the project’s long reach and the long arm of justice.

In 2016, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 media partners published hundreds of stories based on a trove of more than 11.5 million confidential documents from Mossack Fonseca. The Panama Papers were hailed as an unprecedented journalistic project that put tax evasion on the global public agenda.

The investigation contributed to the downfall of political leaders in Iceland, Pakistan and beyond, and sparked arrests, new laws and government probes in dozens of countries across the globe. It exposed an international web of offshore shell companies created for wealthy clients, including star athletes, top business executives and heads of state.

It exposed the magnitude of what was going on. It was mind-blowing. — economist Joseph Stiglitz

The exposé was honored with multiple journalism awards, including a Pulitzer Prize; ICIJ was named second on a list of the world’s biggest tax influencers for 2016; and the “Panama Papers” was mentioned hundreds of thousands of times in media reports in more than 190 countries.

In the decade since, the Panama Papers has cemented its place as a watershed moment in a global push towards greater transparency — and in public and political conversations around tax, secrecy and inequality.

“It exposed the magnitude of what was going on,” economist Joseph Stiglitz told ICIJ. “It was mind-blowing. And it exposed the fact that it wasn’t just the most nefarious individuals in, you might say, poorly governed countries, but senior officials in countries like Iceland and the U.K.”

A slow march to justice

Although Zollinger left Mossack Fonseca years before journalists published the Panama Papers, leaked records showed he was involved in some of the law firm’s most controversial decisions, including its work for sanctioned Syrian businessman Rami Makhlouf. German investigators issued an international arrest warrant for Zollinger in 2020, which was suspended in 2024 when he came forward to face trial.

German authorities have alleged that Zollinger was “a member of a group of companies” that helped clients from around the world “set up so-called ‘offshore companies’ based in Panama or other countries known as ‘tax havens.’ ” If convicted, he faces up to seven and a half years in prison.

Prosecutors have linked Zollinger to a tax loss of about 13 million euros, or roughly $15 million, tied to 50 offshore companies.

In a statement read by his lawyer to the court, Zollinger denied founding a criminal organization but admitted to aiding and abetting tax evasion.

Christoph Zollinger sits between his lawyers in a courtroom in Cologne at the start of the Panama Papers trial.

Frederik Obermaier, one of the two journalists who received the original Panama Papers leak and now co-founder and co-director of Paper Trail Media, attended the first day of the trial in Cologne, and said it showed how long law enforcement efforts can take as prosecutors tackle complex cases spanning multiple countries.

But, Obermaier said, it should also serve as a reminder that those who engage in corruption shouldn’t feel at ease.

“If you are working for another law firm, doing something similar, you should be well aware that this could be your destiny in the future,” he said. “Sitting in front of a trial of a court, and having to explain what you have done.”

Several notable figures at the center of the controversy have faced legal consequences or a public reckoning. Mossack Fonseca shuttered its doors within months of the publication. Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, resigned following nationwide protests after revelations that he and his wife owned a company in the British Virgin Islands.

In 2017, Pakistan’s Supreme Court removed from office the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, as a result of the Panama Papers’ revelations about his family’s properties overseas. A year later, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on corruption charges and fined $10.6 million. Politicians in Mongolia, Spain and beyond also fell.

Protests outside Iceland’s Parliament in Reykjavik the day after the Panama Papers revelations were published. Image: Jóhannes Kr. Kristjánsson / Reykjavik Media

Over $1.3B in taxes recouped

Even 10 years after the Panama Papers, updates about the investigation can still command the public’s attention.

Earlier this year, when The Indian Express received a response to its public information request about the government’s investigation into the Panama Papers, Pandora Papers and other financial investigations, the news was big enough to make the newspaper’s front page.

The Indian Express print front page, featuring a Panama Papers-related update 10 years after the original investigation. Image: The Indian Express

“I-T brings Rs 14,601-crore undisclosed offshore investments to tax,” read the headline. The huge figure includes 13,800 crore rupees — or about $1.4 billion — linked to the Panama Papers.

Those numbers represent the totals that have been identified in tax cases and the dispatch of tax notices, said Ritu Sarin, an ICIJ member and executive editor of news and investigations for The Indian Express. While the sums are yet to be collected, it’s a step towards prosecution and penalty under Indian law.

Like the Zollinger case in Germany, true justice is years in the making.

“[In] Indian courts, things move slowly,” Sarin said. “Investigations take a long time.”

In earlier responses to Indian Express information requests, tax authorities said they filed 46 criminal prosecution complaints and had conducted searches, seizures and surveys as part of 84 Panama Papers-related cases.

Indian authorities aren’t the only ones engaging in a continuous crawl to recoup funds identified in the Panama Papers. ICIJ’s data team estimates at least $1.3 billion have been recouped by authorities internationally that can be directly attributed to the investigation — a number that is likely an undercount, since tallying recouped money is difficult and many countries don’t report the sum collected.

But according to ICIJ’s analysis and information requests, several countries around the world, from Sweden to Belgium to New Zealand to Spain, all recovered figures in the millions. The total may yet rise — as in India, several countries are still engaged in lengthy legal processes.

The investigation marked a turning point for tax departments and regulatory efforts around the world.

“We have learned a lot from the Panama leak and we use that knowledge in our work with new leaks,” a program manager at the Swedish Tax Agency told SVT in 2025. “We have gained better insight into international tax evasion and the central role of different types of enablers.”

But Oxfam also noted that while offshore wealth has increased since the publication of the Panama Papers, the proportion going untaxed has declined substantially, a shift that researchers attribute to progress in information-sharing programs between countries.

“The results, if you just look at policy changes in the last 10 years, have been remarkable,” said Gary Kalman, executive director of Transparency International U.S.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/the-story-that-rocked-the-world-ten-years-of-the-panama-papers-part-1/

BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/hundreds-of-millions-more-dollars-recouped-by-governments-after-icij-investigations/

IMPACT Hundreds of millions more dollars recouped by governments after ICIJ investigations Apr 03, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/police-operation-targeting-brazils-largest-criminal-organization-uncovers-panama-papers-link/

IMPACT Police operation targeting Brazil’s largest criminal organization uncovers Panama Papers link Oct 15, 2024

Recommended reading BEHIND THE SCENES The story that rocked the world: Ten years of the Panama Papers, part 1 Mar 31, 2026 IMPACT Hundreds of millions more dollars recouped by governments after ICIJ investigations Apr 03, 2025 IMPACT Police operation targeting Brazil’s largest criminal organization uncovers Panama Papers link Oct 15, 2024

In the days, months and years since the investigation’s launch, it garnered multiple mentions on late-night TV like “The Daily Show” and “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” cartoons in newspapers and magazines like The New Yorker, and even questions on quiz shows like “Jeopardy!” and National Public Radio’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” It also inspired musicians — at least five musical groups, 11 record albums, and at least 38 songs have since been named after the investigation.

People haven’t blanked out. No, they remember the Panama Papers. — investigative journalist Ritu Sarin

To this day, the investigation’s impact on the public consciousness still lingers; Sarin remembers traveling home from an ICIJ board meeting in Washington, D.C., a couple years ago, and striking up a conversation with a train conductor who immediately recognized the project.

“Of course, you know, as time passes, things fade,” Sarin said. “But people haven’t blanked out. No, they remember the Panama Papers.”

And as global inequality intensifies, ideas in the public consciousness around inequality, tax and transparency seeded by the Panama Papers have continued to dominate political conversations.

“Now, saying we should tax the rich has become quite mainstream,” Ryding said. “That’s also an important message from the Panama Papers: that there is no lack of money in the world. It’s just that when it comes to funding the public budgets, suddenly, there are some people that pay their taxes and there are the people that don’t.”

Panama Papers turns 10

On the tenth anniversary of the groundbreaking investigation, ICIJ and its partners have looked back on how the massive collaboration came together, and the impact the stories continue to have today. Read more:

part one

part two

part three

How the Panama Papers marked a turning point for transparency

Gerard Ryle and Tove Maria Ryding discuss the Panama Papers effect

Read the story that started it all

Panama Papers and the victims of offshore

The story that rocked the world: Behind the scenes of the Panama Papers — part one, part two, part three Video overview: How the Panama Papers marked a turning point for transparency Live panel: Gerard Ryle and Tove Maria Ryding discuss the Panama Papers effect Original investigation: Read the story that started it all (2016) Video introduction: Panama Papers and the victims of offshore (2016)

What they uncovered became the Panama Papers, a sweeping investigation that broke open the secretive world of finance and exposed how the rich and powerful use offshore structures to protect wealth and dodge scrutiny.

The global project broke the model for investigative journalism. It built on years of pioneering collaborative projects by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and exploded into the mainstream as the best new way for journalists to take on systems that no single newsroom could unravel alone.

This series explores how it all came together, drawing on the recollections of the journalists whose reporting sparked a global reckoning over financial secrecy and its consequences. You can read part two here, and part three here.

The beginning

Bastian Obermayer (Germany)
Then: Investigative reporter, Süddeutsche Zeitung | Now: Co-founder and director, Paper Trail Media

Before the world learned how a Panamanian law firm sold secrecy to prime ministers, billionaires and criminals, a German reporter opened a message that would spark a global reckoning:  “Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in data?”

“I thought, ‘That’s really interesting,’” the reporter, Bastian Obermayer, recalled a decade later. “And then I went back and changed the sheets because my son had thrown up again.”

German journalist Bastian Obermayer at his desk in April 2016. Image: Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images

Obermayer’s family — everyone but him — had taken ill, and he’d been balancing his work at Süddeutsche Zeitung with trips to the pharmacy.

The sender was cautious and direct. He insisted on encrypted communication, rejected any face-to-face meetings and warned that disclosure of his identity would endanger his life.

Obermayer agreed to the terms and soon had a cache of internal records from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm known for shell companies.

The material would become part of what the world would come to know as the Panama Papers — 11.5 million confidential documents exposing the offshore financial dealings of politicians, billionaires and world leaders.

There were emails, memos, contracts, spreadsheets and more — enough to map the inner workings of a shadow financial system that regulators and journalists had long suspected and occasionally glimpsed but had never seen documented at such scale or in such granular detail.

They were clearly internal documents, and this John Doe said he had access to more — “more than anything you have ever seen,” he’d promised Obermayer.

The next thing Obermayer did was message his friend and Süddeutsche Zeitung colleague Frederik Obermaier (no relation). Obermaier was on paternity leave but agreed to meet.

“I could already hear the excitement from the first sentence,” Obermaier said. He needed no more convincing.

“I was already in,” he recalled. “Pretty soon we realized this is bigger than everything that we have ever done.”

They realized, too, that it was too big to keep to themselves.

Both had worked on previous ICIJ investigations and they knew what its model made possible: cross-border reporting at a scale no single newsroom could pull off.

They knew, too, that this wasn’t only a German story. It was a global one.

“International stuff is the coolest thing you can do in journalism,” Obermayer said. “When we got the documents, we instantly thought this might be our chance to get the ICIJ to do a project we actually started.”.

It wouldn’t be easy.

First, they had to win over their own newsroom, including colleagues who wanted Süddeutsche Zeitung to keep the scoop for itself. But soon enough, their editor Wolfgang Krach was all in.

Then they had to take the project to ICIJ, which had already built a reputation for global investigations about offshore finance. But the bar for embarking on yet another tax-haven project for ICIJ was high, and its resources were already stretched thin across back-to-back investigations into tax avoidance and private banking.

Image: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Ryle returned to his hotel and kept testing hunches, running various names through the new data set.

“For this to be exciting, it needed to be bigger and better than the investigations we’ve done before,” he said.

Early searches uncovered some potential subjects for investigation, including a Russian mafia boss and even the leader of a small European nation. But at that moment, all he had were fragments — names in emails and transactions on spreadsheets, connections that hinted at something enormous.

John Doe began sending more and more documents. Before he was through, he’d send 11.5 million of them — enough to map the hidden architecture of the offshore world.

But having the data isn’t the same thing as building a project.

For that, Ryle would need a team.

He approached The Guardian and the BBC first. Securing major news organizations early would make it easier to bring in others — and he would need dozens, maybe hundreds.

He faced pushback from Guardian editors who thought ICIJ had already done the definitive stories on offshore tax havens and this would be more of the same. But Ryle knew this was different — in scale and in names. This investigation would reach into the highest levels of power.

By the end of their lunch at London’s Frontline Club, The Guardian and the BBC were onboard.

Now he needed an American outlet — one with reach and investigative chops.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/pop-culture-panama-papers-music/

IMPACT How the Panama Papers rocked pop culture Apr 03, 2023

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview/

Mossack Fonseca Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption Apr 03, 2016

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/hundreds-of-millions-more-dollars-recouped-by-governments-after-icij-investigations/

IMPACT Hundreds of millions more dollars recouped by governments after ICIJ investigations Apr 03, 2025

Recommended reading IMPACT How the Panama Papers rocked pop culture Apr 03, 2023 Mossack Fonseca Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption Apr 03, 2016 IMPACT Hundreds of millions more dollars recouped by governments after ICIJ investigations Apr 03, 2025

Read the story that started it all

Original investigation: Read the story that started it all (2016)

Panama Papers and the victims of offshore

Video introduction: Panama Papers and the victims of offshore (2016)

Klyuev, who is believed to live in Russia, will be tried in absentia in a Paris criminal court in a  daylong procedure set for March 30, the same day the charges are unsealed.

ICIJ has obtained both the charging document, filed secretly last summer, and the notice of hearing for the trial.

The documents show that prosecutors last summer secretly charged Klyuev, 58, with “aggravated money laundering” in connection to his role in the Magnitisky case, a $230-million fraudulent tax refund scheme dating to 2007.

The affair is named after Sergey Magnitsky, a Russian tax advisor working for the American investment firm Hermitage Capital who exposed the fraud and died almost two years later after being beaten in a Moscow prison.  Hermitage’s principal, Bill Browder, made the case a global cause celebre and pushed for what became the Sergei L. Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, the landmark 2012 legislation passed by U.S. legislators targeting Russian corruption globally. Klyuev was the alleged mastermind of the scheme, to falsely claim a tax refund using Hermitage subsidiaries and funnel the proceeds through offshore entities, according to U.S. sanctions against Klyuev and others announced in 2014.

The French case stems from Klyuev’s spending of the alleged proceeds of the fraudulent tax refund in France. Prosecutors allege that between 2007 and 2012, Klyuev spent more than $2.4 million, (2.1 million euros) on French soil on luxury goods, including clothing, jewelry and artwork. Investigators say the funds originated from accounts he controlled that received proceeds from the scheme.

If convicted, Klyuev faces a prison term of up to ten years.

French authorities issued a European arrest warrant for him in March 2025.  Klyuev was charged in August last year but the charges were kept under seal by French authorities on the chance the Klyuev would travel to the country.

According to the filings, Klyuev was involved “in the placement, concealment, or conversion of proceeds directly or indirectly derived from organized fraud committed” against the Russian State and Treasury..

Some proceeds of the scheme were allegedly routed through accounts linked to Klyuev’s Universal Savings Bank before moving offshore, including to entities registered in the British Virgin Islands with accounts at the Cyprus-branch of FBME Bank.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/cyprus-confidential/chelsea-fc-fined-millions-over-secret-payments-under-abramovich-ownership/

IMPACT Chelsea FC fined millions over secret payments under Abramovich ownership Mar 17, 2026

https://www.icij.org/news/2026/01/im-on-the-right-side-of-history-icij-member-roman-anin-stripped-of-his-russian-citizenship/

PRESS FREEDOM ‘I’m on the right side of history’: ICIJ member Roman Anin stripped of his Russian citizenship Jan 22, 2026

https://www.icij.org/investigations/russia-archive/hidden-details-of-putins-private-life-show-his-real-worldview-new-book-claims/

RUSSIA Hidden details of Putin’s private life show his ‘real worldview,’ new book claims Jul 29, 2025

Recommended reading IMPACT Chelsea FC fined millions over secret payments under Abramovich ownership Mar 17, 2026 PRESS FREEDOM ‘I’m on the right side of history’: ICIJ member Roman Anin stripped of his Russian citizenship Jan 22, 2026 RUSSIA Hidden details of Putin’s private life show his ‘real worldview,’ new book claims Jul 29, 2025

Last week, Canada’s Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre removed 23 crypto firms from its registry of firms permitted to provide money services in the country. FINTRAC had earlier this month struck registrations of a dozen other crypto companies operating in the country.

The revocations mark a notable uptick in Canadian enforcement actions around money transmitters and an intensifying focus on crypto businesses in particular, according to experts and officials interviewed by the Star.

“This represents a significantly increased pace of action, and our government will maintain this momentum,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a statement. Champagne vowed to pursue new measures to address risks posed by virtual currency businesses, “which can be used to facilitate money laundering and fraud.”

The actions came after a Star investigation published in November found that dozens of crypto businesses in the Toronto area were not registered with FINTRAC to deal in virtual currencies. Many of these businesses specialize in converting cryptocurrency to physical cash. The Star story, part of ICIJ’s Coin Laundry investigation into dirty money in cryptocurrency, identified a single thoroughfare with 50 businesses advertising crypto services, most of which appeared to be operating unlawfully.

The Star found that two of these operations have used crypto wallets allegedly linked to Iran-backed terror groups.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/retailers-keep-cashing-in-on-crypto-atms-as-scams-surge/

CRYPTOCURRENCY Retailers keep cashing in on crypto ATMs as scams surge Dec 17, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/undercover-crypto-transactions-shady-multimillion-dollar-schemes-and-more-coin-laundry-stories-from-icijs-partners/

PARTNER STORIES Undercover crypto transactions, shady multimillion-dollar schemes, and more Coin Laundry stories from ICIJ’s partners Nov 26, 2025

https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/crypto-cash-desk-currency-exchange-money-laundering/

FINANCIAL SECRECY From Dubai to Toronto, inside the crypto-to-cash storefronts fueling money laundering’s new frontier Nov 17, 2025

Recommended reading CRYPTOCURRENCY Retailers keep cashing in on crypto ATMs as scams surge Dec 17, 2025 PARTNER STORIES Undercover crypto transactions, shady multimillion-dollar schemes, and more Coin Laundry stories from ICIJ’s partners Nov 26, 2025 FINANCIAL SECRECY From Dubai to Toronto, inside the crypto-to-cash storefronts fueling money laundering’s new frontier Nov 17, 2025