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Panama Papers Reveal Offshore Accounts of Balkan Figures

April 5, 201611:38
The massive leak of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which has embarrassed leaders around the world, also names people and companies across the Balkans.
 Photo: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Media outlets all over the Balkans are scanning the leaked data from Mossack Fonseca to find out which of their own nationals are named in the 11.5 million files.

The documents from the fourth largest law firm in the world, known as the Panama Papers, show the many ways in which rich people around the world have exploited secretive offshore tax regimes and tax havens.

Serbia’s network for research on organised crime and corruption, KRIK, on Tuesday released a list of Serbian citizens named in the leaked files.  

Among them are businessmen Srdjan Saper, Zoran Drakulic, Miodrag Kostic and others.

“Some of those mentioned in the decuments were under investigation or indicted for criminal acts relating to offshore operations. Others, however, used those firms within the legal framework,” KRIK said.

KRIK said that documents published in the ICJ database reveal new details about events from the early Nineties in Serbia when money was taken out of the country to Cyprus. The KRIK report reveals that Serbia’s then President, Slobodan Milosevic, funneled out over a billion deutschmarks “stolen from the citizens of Serbia” with his colleagues via offshore companies to Cyprus.

The new data show that the businessman Zoran Drakulic acted as a proxy of the company that controlled the firm that is suspected of helping to take the money out of Serbia.

Vuk Hamovic, a well-known electricity trader, was also mentioned in the Panama Papers data as Drakulicev’s business partner, KRIK says.

The records from the law firm were obtained from an anonymous source by the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and then shared with more than 100 media groups by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

In Bulgaria, the names of several companies and individuals were found in the leaks, but no records implicate politicians as of yet, the daily 24 Chasa reported on Monday.

24 Chasa, the ICIJ’s only reporting partner from Bulgaria, said that the files named at least 50 Bulgarian companies, six intermediary firms, 16 owners and 78 shareholders linked to offshore accounts in the tax havens of the Bahamas, the Seychelles, the Antilles, Panama, Niue and the British Virgin Islands.

The Tirana Times said the names of two Albanian companies, three beneficiaries and 22 shareholders appeared in the leaked documents.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, one of the main media outlets exposing the Panama Papers scandal said that among the documents is the name of Assaf Halkin, a lawyer who has registered four companies through Mossack Fonseca. One is GFI technologies, registered in Anguilla with the purpose of investing in a high-tech company in Albania.

Haaretz also writes that the owners of the company are an Albanian, Ismail Mulati, and the Canadian firm Global Fluids International S.A.

At least 13 companies, two clients, two or three beneficiaries and 16 shareholders from Montenegro are named in the papers, according to an interactive map published by the Irish Times.

Croatia’s Finance Ministry on Monday said that it was following developments regarding the so-called “Panama Papers” and taking all measures envisaged by the relevant laws regarding the possible involvement of Croatian companies or nationals.

Three Croatian companies are allegedly mentioned in the documents but the ministry declined to reveal details, citing tax information privacy.

Romania’s Rosia Montana gold mining project and the controversial privatizations of the Rafo refinery and Alro aluminum producer are mentioned in the Panama Papers, according to the independent journalism website Rise Project, which has been collaborating with the international investigation.

According to Rise Project, Romanian-Australian businessman Frank Timis and former Moldovan prime minister Ion Sturza are associated with the use of offshore tax havens in the papers. Other Romanian businessmen from the football and media sectors are also mentioned in the files.