Panama Papers leak shows S’pore link to 5,869 offshore entities

SINGAPORE — A database of more than 200,000 secret offshore companies, trusts and foundations set up in 21 tax havens, dubbed the “Panama Papers”, was released for public access on Tuesday (May 10) by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), with the Singapore file showing 5,869 offshore entities, 6,116 officers, 1,315 intermediaries and 5,728 addresses.

There were many familiar-sounding organisations among those found in the ICIJ database but several — including the Law Society of Singapore, Temasek Wellness Investments and Vertex Holdings — turned out to be unrelated to their namesakes. A Law Society spokesperson told TODAY that it is investigating the misuse of its name.

“The Law Society of Singapore does not have any overseas accounts, nor has it incorporated any overseas entities. The Law Society’s name has obviously been misused (and it) will be conducting an inquiry into that,” the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Singapore’s state-owned investment giant Temasek Holdings said it is not related to Temasek Wellness Investments. The same was said by Vertex Venture Holdings on the company Vertex Holdings.

In response to TODAY’s queries on the ICIJ release, spokespersons from the Ministry of Finance and Monetary Authority of Singapore said: “We are reviewing the batch of information that was released this morning on the persons and entities identified in the Panama Papers. If there is evidence of wrongdoing by any individual or entity in Singapore, we will not hesitate to take firm supervisory and enforcement action.”

Singapore is one of the 21 offshore jurisdictions named by the ICIJ as a tax haven. The Washington-based ICIJ said it had published the information “in the public interest”. It acknowledged that while many of the activities carried out through offshore entities are perfectly legal, extensive reporting by the ICIJ and its media partners over four years has shown that the anonymity granted by the offshore economy facilitates money laundering, tax evasion, fraud and other crimes.

The majority of the leaked data comes from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which has an office in Singapore. The law firm said last month it was hacked and denied any wrongdoing. The data released by the ICIJ includes information from the Panama Papers investigation first published in April and the earlier 2013 offshore exposé covering nearly 40 years — from 1977 through 2015 — as well as links to people and companies in more than 200 countries and territories.

Reports published in April showed links to some of the world’s most powerful leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron, and also resulted in the resignation of Iceland’s Prime Minister David Gunnlaugsson and Spain’s Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria.

The ICIJ said Mossack Fonseca has worked globally with more than 14,000 banks, law firms, company incorporators and other middlemen and intermediaries to set up companies, foundations and trusts for customers. But it said it was not making available raw documents or personal information online, nor was it putting all the information from the records out in full view.

“The database does not disclose the totality of the leaked records. It doesn’t divulge raw documents or personal information en masse. It contains a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions, but it doesn’t disclose bank accounts, email exchanges and financial transactions contained in the documents,” said the ICIJ on the website.