The Panama Papers exposed a huge global problem. What's next?

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

coming out form the leak
of 11 million documents

from a Panamanian-based law firm
called Mossack Fonseca.

The release of these papers
from Panama

lifts the veil on a tiny piece
of the secretive offshore world.

We get an insight into how
clients and banks and lawyers

go to companies like Mossack Fonseca

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

can you give us one?"

So you actually get to see the emails,

you get to see the exchanges
of messages,

you get to see the mechanics
of how this works,

how this operates.

Now this has already started

to have pretty immediate repercussions.

The Prime Minister of
Iceland has resigned.

We've also heard news that an ally

of the brutal Syrian dictator
Bashar al-Assad

has also got offshore companies.

There's been allegations
of a 2 billion-dollar money trail

that leads back to
President Vladimir Putin of Russia

via his close childhood friend

who happens to be a top cellist.

And there will be a lot
of rich individuals out there

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

and the next set of leaked documents.

Now, this sounds like the plot
of a spy thriller

or a John Grisham novel.

It seemed very distant from
you and me ordinary people.

Why should we care about this?

But the truth is that if rich
and powerful individuals

are able to keep their money offshore

and not pay the taxes that they should,

it means that there is less money
for vital public services

like healthcare, education, roads,

and that affects all of us.

Now for my organization Global Witness,

this exposé has been phenomenal.

We have the world's media
and political leaders

talking about how individuals can use
offshore secrecy

to hide and disguise their assets,

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

Now I think a lot of people
find this entire world

baffling and confusing
and hard to understand

how this sort of offshore world works.

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

So you can have one company
stacked inside another company,

stacked inside another company,

making it almost impossible
to really understand

who is behind these strucutres.

It can be very difficult
for law enforcement

or tax authorities,
journalists, civil society

to really understand what's going on.

I also think it's interesting
that there's been

less coverage of this issue
in the United States,

and that's perhaps because
some prominent US people

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

Now that's not because there are
no rich Americans

who are stashing their assets
offshore.

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

Mossack Fonseca has fewer
American clients.

I think if we saw leaks from
the Cayman Islands

or even from Delaware
or Wyoming or Nevada,

you would see many more cases
and examples

linking back to Americans.

In fact, in a number of US states,

you need less information,
you need to provide less information

to get a company than you do
to get a library card.

That sort of secrecy in America
has allowed

employees of school districts
to rip off school children.

It has allowed scammers
to rip off vulnerable investors.

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

Now at Global Witness,
we wanted to see

what this actually looked
like in practice.

how does this actually work?

So what we did is we sent in
an undercover investigator

to 13 Manhattan law firms.

Our investigator posed
as an African minister

who wanted to move suspect funds
into the United States

to buy a house, a yacht, a jet.

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

provided our investigator with suggestions
on how to move those suspect funds.

These were all preliminary meetings

and none of the lawyers took us on
as a client,

and of course no money moved hands,

but it really shows the problem
with the system.

It's also important to not just
think about this

as invidiaul cases.

This is not just about
an individual lawyer

who's spoken to our
undercover investigator

and provided suggestions.

It's not just about a particular
senior politician

who's been caught up
in a scandal.

This is about how a system works

that entrenches corruption,
tax evasion, poverty and instability.

And in order to tackle this,

we need to change the game,

we need to change the rules of the game

to make this sort of behavior harder.

This may seem like doom and gloom,

like there's nothing we can do about it,

like nothing has ever changed,

like there will always be
rich and powerful individuals.

But as a natural optimist,

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

Over the last couple of years,

we've seen a real push towards
greater transparency

when it comes to company ownership.

This issue was put on
the political agenda

by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron
at a big G8 Summit

that was held in Northern Ireland
in 2013.

And since then, the European Union

is going to be creating central registers
at a national level

of who really owns and controls companies
across Europe.

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

There's bipartisan legislation
that's been introduced

in the House and the Senate,

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

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

this huge peak into the offshore world,

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

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

We need ordinary people
to get angry

at the way in which people can hide
their identity behind secret companies.

We need business leaders to stand up
and say,

"Secrecy like this is
not good for business."

We need political leaders
to recognize the problem

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

Together, we can end the secrecy
that is currently allowing

tax evasion, corruption,
money laundering to flourish.