General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Massive leak exposes how the wealthy and powerful hide their money [View all]starroute
(12,977 posts)Jurgen Mossack was born in Germany in 1948. His father was a former SS-Waffen officer -- his name seems to have been Erhard Mossack -- who was apparently protected by the US after the war and moved his family to Panama in the early 1960s, where he offered to spy on Cuba for the CIA.
The younger Mossack founded his company in 1977 -- a highly significant year. When George H.W. Bush was CIA director in 1976, the same CIA guys who had been running the anti-Castro operations out of Miami fifteen years earlier started getting involved in Central American gun-running, drug trafficking, and money-laundering. Panama was an early center of their operations. But when Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, Bush was out and his CIA pals started moving their operations off the books.
Was Mossack's firm either a CIA proprietary or closely connected to these rogue CIA operations? That's what I'd really like to know.
Another significant date is 1986. That's when Iran-Contra was revealed and the whole off-the-books Latin American operation that had reached its climax during the Reagan administration blew sky high. And it's also when Mossack merged his firm with Fonseca's -- and, my guess is, moved into the more lucrative business of laundering money for the rich and powerful.
Another tantalizing bit is that the documents were leaked to a local paper in Bavaria, where Mossack was born. Coincidence? Significant? Or just somebody's idea of a joke?
There are so many strange aspects to this case, and it's important not to get distracted by the shiny objects.
Edit history
![](du4img/smicon-reply-new.gif)