Yesterday we all became aware of a website called panamapapers.icij.org, exposing 140 politicians and their financial crimes. The sensitive documents were stolen from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The company supervised shell and offshore businesses of very famous and wealthy people worldwide. The Panama Papers include approximately 11.5 million documents – more than the combined total of the Wikileaks Cablegate, Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks, and Swiss Leaks.

As a result of the leak, leaders of Argentina, Georgia, Iceland, Quatar, Sudan, Ukraine and other countries were accused of money laundering and illegal financial operations aimed to hide taxes and transfer money to offshore companies. Papers also contain information about Russian president Vladimir Putin and his close surrounding.

Key findings:

• Files reveal the offshore holdings of 140 politicians and public officials from around the world
• Current and former world leaders in the data include prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan, the president of Ukraine, and the king of Saudi Arabia
• More than 214,000 offshore entities appear in the leak, connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories
• Major banks have driven the creation of hard-to-trace companies in offshore havens

The original leak contained 2.6 terabytes of data, making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with. In the past 12 months, around 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries have taken part in researching the documents. These have included teams from the Guardian and the BBC in England, Le Monde in France, and La Nación in Argentina. In Germany, SZ journalists have cooperated with their colleagues from two public broadcasters, NDR and WDR. Journalists from the Swiss Sonntagszeitung and the Austrian weekly Falter have also worked on the project, as have their colleagues at ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster. The international team initially met in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer and London to map out the research approach.

Russian media Izvestia warned on March 28, that a massive information attacks is prepared against Russia, before the Panama Papers were released to the public.

Among others, Mossack Fonsecas’ clients include criminals and members of various Mafia groups. The documents also expose bribery scandals and corrupt heads of state and government. The alleged offshore companies of twelve current and former heads of state make up one of the most spectacular parts of the leak, as do the links to other leaders, and to their families, closest advisors, and friends. The Panamanian law firm also counts almost 200 other politicians from around the globe among its clients, including a number of ministers.

Unfortunately the archive is not public, at least not yet.