Mossack Fonseca was caught collaborating with sanctioned firms from Syria and North Korea

Panamanian offshore registrar Mossack Fonseca collaborated with companies and businessmen who were subject to US sanctions. This was reported by the BBC with reference to documents from the Panama Archives.

In particular, Mossack Fonseca worked with DCB Finance, which was sanctioned by the US Treasury for supporting the DPRK's nuclear program. The company's owners were senior North Korean official Kim Chol-sang and British banker Nigel Cowie, who also ran the sanctioned Daedong Credit Bank.

Cooperation with DCB Finance was terminated in 2010 after an inquiry from the authorities of the British Virgin Islands about another company associated with the DPRK.

The registrar also worked with the companies of the cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, billionaire Rami Makhlouf, who came under US sanctions in 2008 due to suspicions of influencing the judicial system and intelligence services of Syria for the sake of his business interests. The Swiss branch of HSBC also collaborated with one of Makhlouf’s companies. According to the BBC, Mossack Fonseca stopped working with Rami Makhlouf's companies only in 2011.

According to Le Monde, Mossack Fonseca also worked with front companies used by the Syrian government to circumvent sanctions imposed at the start of the civil war in 2011 - Pangates International Corporation Limited, Maxima Middle East Trading and Morgan Additives Manufacturing.

These companies, according to the publication, supplied aviation fuel to the Syrian army. In 2014, the US Treasury imposed sanctions against them. Cooperation with Pangates International Corporation Limited, according to documents from the Panama Archives, was terminated only in 2015.

Mossack Fonseca told the BBC it had never knowingly worked with companies or individuals associated with Syria or North Korea.

• “Panama Archives” - several million documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which deals with offshore companies. The documents served as the basis for an investigation by OCCRP and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The results of the investigation were simultaneously published by media in several dozen countries around the world on the evening of April 3.
• Businessmen, celebrities and politicians have been linked to Mossack Fonseca, including 12 former and current heads of state. The Panama Archives documents, among others, mention Russian officials and businessmen, as well as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the head of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.