A team of 20 tax officials and armed national police officers on Monday seized financial documents from Mossack Fonseca’s Peru offices, the National Superintendency of Tax Administration said.
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Prosecutors said the operation had been carried out at the headquarters of Mossack Fonseca in Panama City to find evidence of money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The raid follows a visit from intellectual property prosecutors to Mossack Fonseca after the firm’s founder alleged that a computer was hacked to reveal the millions of records about tax havens.
Panama’s government has said it will co-operate with any judicial investigation arising from the documents.
Following a massive data breach at a Panama-based law firm that a founding partner has blamed on a hack attack, government officials on Tuesday raided the headquarters of Mossack Fonseca & Co.
Fernández is currently tied to multiple corruption investigations now that she is out of office, including one into money laundering as well as an alleged plan to manipulate the country’s currency, the latter of which she will testify about today.
The “Panama Papers” were first leaked to a German newspaper which later shared them with other media organisations.
“The meeting of JITSIC leaders to discuss the Panama papers is unprecedented and a great opportunity to demonstrate global will and capability to take on this multilateral challenge when it matters most”, the spokesman added.
Mossack Fonseca has stressed that it has never been accused of or charged with wrongdoing.
The leaks have caused significant ripples the world over, with Icelandic PM Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson resigning among others, following the publications that showed how some wealthy people use offshore firms to evade tax and avoid sanctions.
The clients include Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin; and relatives of British Prime Minister David Cameron, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; and China’s President Xi Jinping.
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Panama’s President, Juan Carlos Varela, has defended the country’s financial sector, which is considered vital to the country’s economy.
