The world was shocked by the Panama Papers, a leak of confidential files from a Panama company named Mossack Fonseca, known for its services to assist individuals and corporations to establish shell companies in Panama. Usually, those companies were established for various reasons, not all of them against the law. But they have often been used for money laundering or evading taxes.
A number of important names were mentioned in the Panama Papers, some of which are Indonesians Sandiaga Uno, Riza Chalid and Chairil Tanjung. A number of Japanese giant corporations are also mentioned, such as Marubeni and Fast Retailing (Uniqlo). In addition to those, in the list that has been revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), two companies that are familiar to anime fans are also mentioned, —Bandai and Dwango.
Through Bandai Co. Ltd., Bandai has various companies affiliated with Rakuten Networks, a prominent e-commerce company in Japan. Dwango, on the other hand, has a shell offshore company named Skysoft Inc, known to have developed music streaming service, KKBOX. At the present, Bandai Networks, Ltd. has merged and been changed into Bandai Namco Holdings, while Dwango has merged into Kadokawa Dwango Corp.
There are some caveats. Readers of the leak should excersice cautions and discretion before drawing conclusions from this news. The existing ICIJ list is a temporary list, and ICIJ are planning to issue a more detailed, official version of various companies that has had deals with Mosack Fonseca on May 2016. Moreover, ICIJ also stated that shell companies are not a taboo practice; it’s just that many shell companies in Fonseca camuflaged their owners, which then was manipulated to evade taxes or laundrying money.
However, Suddeutsche Zeitung already said in their websites that they won’t disclose names that don’t fullfill any necessary requirements to be named. In other mean, it implies that disclosed names have any possibilities of commiting fraud.
Outside of Indonesia and Japan, the impact of the Panama Papers has been significant. Iceland’s Prime Minister, David Gunnlaugsson, has resigned; and a number of FIFA’s high officials are suspected to have conducted money-laundering through shell companies established with the assistance from Fonseca.
With a total leakage of up to 2.6 TB (about 2,660 GB) and a number of important names mentioned within it, Panama Papers is seen to have the potential to change the structure of global politics and economy significantly.
The Indonesian Anime Times | by Kevin Wilyan with translation by Paksi Pradipta
