There is no extradition from Panama

How Russian investigators explained the absence of criminal cases on Panama files and what this means

The Prosecutor General’s Office told why Russian investigators have not opened a single criminal case on Panama Papers for three years, which contains the names of senior Russian officials, their relatives and people close to power in foreign offshores, trusts and funds.

It turned out that things are not excited because Panama stubbornly does not respond to requests from Russia. So this was explained by the assistant Prosecutor General Aslan Yusufov, deputy director of the Center for Anti -Corruption Policy of the Yabloko party, Alexei Chumakov.

An excuse approximately in the spirit that "the Keeper of the stolen refuses to cooperate."

And does Russian investigators need reciprocity by Panama?

“Panamanian files” are data on the real owners of offshore companies, trusts and funds that were disclosed thanks to the international consortium of journalists-investigators (ICIJ), the German newspaper Zyuddeche Tsaitung and the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organizational Crror (OCCRP).

The New Gazeta took part in the study of the Panama Dossier and found many interesting names there: officials, deputies, presidential friends, including the cellist Sergei Roldugin, who had never been an entrepreneur and did not lead a luxurious lifestyle, but through the offshore companies connected with him passed more than $ 2 billion.

In "Panama files" there are not only documents about property. There are passport data, home addresses, bank details, and in some cases information about what kind of business the firms did, what they owned and what cash have disposed.

Not all these firms, trusts and funds were in Panama - they are scattered around the world from Europe to tropical islands. And the fact that Panama is reluctant to cooperate with investigators did not prevent the authorities of many countries from conducting checks in relation to their officials, politicians and entrepreneurs who were blazed in the Panama Dossier.

And in some countries there were political scandals that led to loud resignations -

In Iceland, for example, the Prime Minister lost the post, in Pakistan the prime minister was removed from politics.

Even in Russia, where there was almost no legal reaction to the Panama Dossier (they limited themselves to assurances that everyone, as always, was tuned with enemies), the head of Rosfinmonitoring Yuri Chikhanchin in April 2018 stated that the connection between Russian public officials, including from the governor's corps, and companies that made dubious transactions. And Russian tax authorities have repeatedly used the materials of “Panama files”, making claims to businessmen regarding tax failure.

So the lack of criminal cases on the materials of the Panama Dossier is not a procedural problem, but rather political.

“If the Panama files have passport data and addresses of specific people who have performed dubious operations, then this information is enough to conduct control measures. As it was in other countries. And from the point of view of the operational-search activity of this information, it is enough to verify, ”says Paragon Advice Group, lawyer Alexander Zakharov. - Even the head of the Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, to receive information about financial transactions, may contact Rosfinmonitoring, for this he does not have to wait for an answer from Panama. State authorities can request data on the sources of income and the origin of capital, data from banks, there is cooperation between financial intelligence at the international level. The only question is whether there is a political desire to consider people and transactions that were noted in the Panama dossier, quite suspicious. ”