He was one of the principals of the law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers. Ramon Fonseca died while awaiting his trial in the context of this global scandal which broke out in 2016, his lawyer announced this Thursday, May 9, without specifying the cause of death. The Panamanian lawyer “was hospitalized, which is why he did not attend the trial,” which opened on April 8 and had not yet issued a judgment, said Guillermina McDonald, a lawyer for the former company at the center of the scandal that revealed how celebrities around the world hid money at the tax. Ramon Fonseca, 71, died in a hospital in the capital of the Central American country.
During the trial, which ended on April 19, the maximum sentence for money laundering — twelve years in prison — was requested against Ramon Fonseca and Jürgen Mossack, the two founders of the Mossack law firm. Fonseca. The court must render its judgment within thirty days.
The affair broke out in 2016 after the publication of an investigation, known as the “Panama Papers”, carried out by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICJI). Based on the leak of 11.5 million documents from the Mossack Fonseca study, it revealed that heads of state and government, leading politicians and figures from finance, sports and the artistic world hid properties, businesses, capital and profits from the tax authorities.
To this end, they created opaque companies, through the Panamanian cabinet, to open bank accounts and create shell companies in several countries, in order to hide money, in some cases coming from illegal activities, according to the consortium’s investigation.
Among the figures mentioned are, among many others, the former heads of government of Iceland Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif and of the United Kingdom David Cameron (current head of British diplomacy), the ex-president of Argentina Mauricio Macri, as well as soccer star Lionel Messi and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.
The scandal led to the closure of the Mossack Fonseca firm and the image of the small Central American country was seriously affected.
Commission payment and scam
The prosecution accuses lawyers Mossack and Fonseca of having facilitated, through their law firm, the creation of opaque companies in which executives of the German multinational Siemens deposited millions of euros outside the accounts real assets of the company. This “fund B” would have been used to hide money linked to the payment of commissions. The Panamanian firm, according to the prosecution, was also used to store money from a massive scam in Argentina.
“Really, there was a great injustice (…) I repeat that my partner and all the people who worked with me were serious, honest and correct people”Jürgen Mossack defended himself during his pleadings on April 19.
The case was brought to the cinema. Ramon Fonseca, who wrote several novels, was played by Spanish actor Antonio Banderas in the film The Laundromat: The Panama Papers Affair» (2019), also starring American actress Meryl Streep. Mossack was played by Gary Oldman in this film directed by Steven Soderbergh.
