Icelanders in the Panama Papers

The names of almost 170 individuals and a considerable amount of companies directly related to Iceland and Icelanders are found in the newly released data based on the Panama Papers. Those are not including the Icelanders related to companies registered outside Iceland, like Luxemburg and the UK.

A database completed from the analysis of the Panama Papers was made public by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) last week, the published data covers a part of the shell companies in the Panama Papers, there is no original copies in the data, just basic information about companies and individuals. The Panama Papers as a whole how ever include approximately 11.5 million documents – more than the combined total of the Wikileaks Cablegate, Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks, and Swiss Leaks. The data includes e-mails, pdf files, photo files, and excerpts of an internal Mossack Fonseca database. It covers a period spanning from the 1970s to the spring of 2016. The original data is still being analysed in a group effort by the ICIJ and the Süddeutsche Zeitung and more.

There are additional Icelandic names but those are not registered under Iceland. About fourth of the Icelandic names found so far in the documents are thought to be in the published database, including many names familiar leading up to the Icelandic financial crash of 2008, names of CEO’s, a variety of names from the Icelandic business sector in Iceland, lawyers and fishing vessel owners.

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