Russia’s Prosecutor General's Office has сlassified information about the ‘Panama Papers’
In response to a request by the Rambler News Service (RNS) about the results of the prosecutor's inspection of the “Panama Papers,” the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation stated that this information is not available to the public, Rambler News Service reports.
“The requested information contains details that cannot be discllosed,” said Alexander Kurennoy, head of the news service department of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, in response to the request by RNS.
In particular, RNS requested information on whether the examination was completed and, if so, what the results are; whether any unlawful activities were carried out by any of the parties; if the examination has not been completed, what the status is now; whether competent Panamanian authorities have responded to the request of the Prosecutor General's Office; and whether requests have been sent to other countries.
In the spring of 2016, a large number of files from Mossack Fonseca were leaked to the media that contained information about the registration of offshore companies. The documents deal with numerous companies used by state leaders, politicians, celebrities, and famous athletes. The investigation is based on 2.6 terabytes of data, which include 11.5 million documents taken from Mossack Fonseca servers.
The documents caused quite a stir in many countries. In particular, in the section about the Russian Federation, it was reported that those in President Vladimir Putin’s close circle withdrew from Russia at least $2 billion through offshore companies, with the front man being cellist Sergei Roldugin, a friend of the Russian President.
On April 27th, during a speech to the Federation Council, Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said that the supervisory department was checking the facts outlined in the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) documents and had sent a request to Panama.