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[On April 3, 2016 we saw
the largest data leak in history.]

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[The Panama Papers exposed
rich and powerful people]

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[hiding vast amounts of money
in offshore accounts.]

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[What does this mean?]

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[We called Robert Palmer
of Global Witness to explain.]

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This week, there have been
a whole slew and deluge of stories

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coming out from the leak
of 11 million documents

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from a Panamanian-based law firm
called Mossack Fonseca.

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The release of these papers from Panama
lifts the veil on a tiny piece

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of the secretive offshore world.

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We get an insight into how clients
and banks and lawyers

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go to companies like Mossack Fonseca

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and say, "OK, we want
an anonymous company,

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can you give us one?"

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So you actually get to see the emails,

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you get to see the exchanges of messages,

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you get to see the mechanics
of how this works,

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how this operates.

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Now, this has already started
to have pretty immediate repercussions.

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The Prime Minister
of Iceland has resigned.

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We've also had news

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that an ally of the brutal
Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad

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has also got offshore companies.

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There's been allegations
of a $2 billion money trail

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that leads back to President
Vladimir Putin of Russia

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via his close childhood friend,

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who happens to be a top cellist.

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And there will be a lot
of rich individuals out there

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and others who will be nervous
about the next set of stories

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and the next set of leaked documents.

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Now, this sounds like the plot
of a spy thriller

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or a John Grisham novel.

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It seems very distant
from you, me, ordinary people.

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Why should we care about this?

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But the truth is that if rich
and powerful individuals

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are able to keep their money offshore

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and not pay the taxes that they should,

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it means that there is less money
for vital public services

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like healthcare, education, roads.

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And that affects all of us.

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Now, for my organization Global Witness,

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this exposé has been phenomenal.

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We have the world's media
and political leaders

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talking about how individuals
can use offshore secrecy

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to hide and disguise their assets --

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something we have been talking about
and exposing for a decade.

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Now, I think a lot of people find
this entire world baffling and confusing,

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and hard to understand how
this sort of offshore world works.

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I like to think of it a bit
like a Russian doll.

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So you can have one company
stacked inside another company,

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stacked inside another company,

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making it almost impossible
to really understand

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who is behind these structures.

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It can be very difficult
for law enforcement

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or tax authorities,
journalists, civil society

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to really understand what's going on.

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I also think it's interesting

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that there's been less coverage
of this issue in the United States.

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And that's perhaps because
some prominent US people

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just haven't figured
in this exposé, in this scandal.

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Now, that's not because
there are no rich Americans

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who are stashing their assets offshore.

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It's just because of the way
in which offshore works,

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Mossack Fonseca has fewer
American clients.

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I think if we saw leaks
from the Cayman Islands

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or even from Delaware
or Wyoming or Nevada,

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you would see many more cases
and examples linking back to Americans.

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In fact, in a number of US states
you need less information,

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you need to provide less
information to get a company

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than you do to get a library card.

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That sort of secrecy in America
has allowed employees of school districts

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to rip off schoolchildren.

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It has allowed scammers
to rip off vulnerable investors.

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This is the sort of behavior
that affects all of us.

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Now, at Global Witness,

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we wanted to see what this
actually looked like in practice.

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How does this actually work?

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So what we did

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is we sent in an undercover investigator
to 13 Manhattan law firms.

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Our investigator posed
as an African minister

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who wanted to move suspect funds
into the United States

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to buy a house, a yacht, a jet.

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Now, what was truly shocking
was that all but one of those lawyers

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provided our investigator with suggestions

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on how to move those suspect funds.

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These were all preliminary meetings,

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and none of the lawyers
took us on as a client

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and of course no money moved hands,

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but it really shows the problem
with the system.

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It's also important

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to not just think about this
as individual cases.

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This is not just about
an individual lawyer

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who's spoken to our undercover
investigator and provided suggestions.

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It's not just about
a particular senior politician

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who's been caught up in a scandal.

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This is about how a system works,

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that entrenches corruption,
tax evasion, poverty and instability.

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And in order to tackle this,

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we need to change the game.

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We need to change the rules of the game

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to make this sort of behavior harder.

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This may seem like doom and gloom,

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like there's nothing we can do about it,

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like nothing has ever changed,

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like there will always be rich
and powerful individuals.

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But as a natural optimist,

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I do see that we are starting
to get some change.

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Over the last couple of years,

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we've seen a real push towards
greater transparency

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when it comes to company ownership.

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This issue was put on the political agenda

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by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron

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at a big G8 Summit that was held
in Northern Ireland in 2013.

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And since then, the European Union
is going to be creating

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central registers at a national level

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of who really owns and controls
companies across Europe.

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One of the things that is sad is that,
actually, the US is lagging behind.

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There's bipartisan legislation
that had been introduced

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in the House and the Senate,

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but it isn't making as much progress
as we'd like to see.

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So we'd really want to see
the Panama leaks,

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this huge peek into the offshore world,

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be used as a way of opening up
in the US and around the world.

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For us at Global Witness,
this is a moment for change.

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We need ordinary people to get angry

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at the way in which people
can hide their identity

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behind secret companies.

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We need business leaders
to stand up and say,

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"Secrecy like this is not
good for business."

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We need political leaders
to recognize the problem,

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and to commit to changing the law
to open up this sort of secrecy.

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Together, we can end the secrecy

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that is currently allowing tax evasion,

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corruption, money laundering to flourish.