The initial e-mail message, from the "Panama Papers" source, John Doe, was sent to German reporter, Bastian Obermayer, and his colleague, Frederik Obermaier, in 2014, at their newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, eventually adding up to 11.5 million documents.
And it was decided to disseminate the information through a coalition of news organizations, which the main one was decided would be The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
It took a year and more for 370+ reporters to sift through the mountains of data that was dumped to them, the documents having come from the Panama based law firm, Mossack Fonseca. Those that were of interest to us have to do with the children of Nawaz Sharif, the current Prime Minister of Pakistan, which any criminologist will tell you, that criminals many, many times will put their ill-gotten gains in the names of children, relatives and in-laws.
These documents provided data on some 214,000 companies, while two years before this data dump, an anonymous source sold a much smaller amount of data to German, US and Icelandic authorities, and as James Corbett, of The Corbett Report, found out from his research, the main question mark being why didn't the authorities, read Western intelligence agencies, not bother to identify who this earlier source was. As Press for Truth[a Canadian based ALT news/analysis organization] discusses at length in their program on the monumental leak, the question you have to ask yourself is who benefits the most from the leak.
It turns out that it is the United States, and the countries targeted in these leaks are in the crosshairs of the US State Department, and or are countries where a regime change is desired by the United States government. Pakistan is a perfect example of where the United States has met resistance from the government, especially the ISI[Inter-Services Intelligence] which is both the equivalent of the CIA, but specifically the CIA's Directorate of Operations, the covert action arm.
David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, authored a fictional book Bloodmoney, (2011) which was about the ISI, though it is based on real world information that he gathered from contacts in the ISI that he had developed. In his opinion the ISI and the CIA are like two scorpions in a bottle, which amply illustrates how there is deep friction between the two, with the CIA acting recklessly without concern for the sovereignty of Pakistan, let alone its neighbor Afghanistan, who's US installed puppet government is a disgrace, being corrupt as heck.
Now this was exacerbated by the still disputed killing by US Special Forces of Osama bin Laden, which ticked off a lot of those in Pakistan, who already have put up with many scores of innocent deaths by drone strikes. So if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is no longer of any use to US authorities, what do you do? You simply use information warfare in order to neutralize him, causing an eventual change in government.
It is as Russia Today's CrossTalk called it, an example of a corruption psyops[psychological operations] which is meant to manipulate people into reacting to some strategic information, even though true in the case of the Panama Papers. It is in other words a form of geopolitical information warfare, though in the case of Pakistan, it has been a boon since the whole situation will hopefully help cleanse the government of corruption. The reaction to these strategic leaks/financial information warfare, aimed at Nawaz Sharif will entail blowback on the US culprits behind it, since it in actuality might very well usher in a Prime Minister that cannot be controlled or be directed like some flunky or stooge, furthering US foreign policy.
Nawaz Sharif, by implication of wealth tied to his 3 children, seems to have been funneling money outside of Pakistan, almost as if to hide money he didn't want the Pakistani authorities to find out about. The undeclared wealth is hidden in offshore companies owned by Sharif's 3 children, the companies' names being Nescoll Ltd, Nielsen Enterprises Ltd and Hangon Property Holdings Ltd., incorporated from first to last in 1993, 1994 and 2007. These assets weren't declared on Sharif's wealth statement, leaving many in the Pakistani federal parliament to cry foul, demanding him to account for these discrepancies, and of course there being calls for his resignation. As was reported by NDTV, and to quote it: "Nawaz Sharif does not own any company but having companies in the name of his three children raises questions," Umar Cheema of the independent Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan(CIRP) told Agence France-Presse.
To quote the AFP/NDTV article further: "The CIRP is partnered with the Investigative Consortium of Independent Journalists(ICIJ), which spent months poring over the documents ahead of Sunday's online release. There are more than 200 Pakistanis which our report has identified, and they include lawyers, lawmakers and some people from the judiciary," he[Cheema] said. Opposition leader Imran Khan issued a swift call for action against Sharif after the release[of the Panama Papers]. "Our stance [is] vindicated again as Sharif's wealth [which is] stashed abroad [is] exposed, " he[Khan] tweeted, adding the country's accountability watchdog, tax authorities and election commission "must take action". Sharif already had plenty enough troubles with his rapport with the Pakistani armed forces, so it is curious that he should be outed by some supposed anonymous source.
The leader of the Tehreek-e-Insaf[Pakistan Movement for Justice], Imran Khan, who is also a member of the National Assembly, has lead the movement against Sharif, following these very, very curious leaks, or one could say strategic leaks. Funds were channeled through these companies to acquire foreign assets, some of which were apartments in London, in the Park Lane and Mayfair areas. Sharif's son, Hussain, said to Geo, Pakistan's largest private broadcaster that his family had done "nothing wrong". He said, "Those apartments are ours and those offshore companies are also ours[meaning his, and his siblings].
The implications are that this was money being laundered in order to hide it, and to avoid Pakistani taxes, and typically Sharif answered the opposition's call for an explanation by saying that if these were ill-gotten funds, would they be in the actual names of his children. The "limited hangout" on his children, which naturally lead to the questioning of his integrity, caused such a panic in the top levels of his political party, the Pakistan Muslim League, or PML-N, that Sharif unexpectedly flew off to London to see his doctors. The tangential possibilities are endless when looking at which world leaders have been implicated in this scandal, such as who is really behind this unprecedented data dump, and for what purpose[s].
An easily ascertained explanation is that it is meant to throw the political systems of many of the world's countries into chaos, and curiously none of the big players implicated are from America, which most certainly has it's share of tax dodging billionaires, millionaires, politicians and celebrities. I tend to agree with the belief that Dr. Joseph Patrick Farrell has put out, that it may very well be the secret network built by the Nazi's after WWII, mainly in South and Central America, but also likely the United States & Europe, that Dr. Farrell has dubbed, The Nazi International, that might be the likeliest culprit behind these strategic leaks. The theory goes that by "outing" these many, many world politicians and notable figures, someone is letting the US political and oligarchic leadership know that they too can be gotten to, and that they should take heed that they too can be put under a microscope, if these individuals so desire to do so.
Whether one wants to call them by their original name, ODESSA, or by Dr. Farrell's name, the Nazi International, matters little since whatever the name, these neo-Nazis represent a third force in the world, possessing advanced technology and weapons that Dr. Farrell exhibits knowledge of in his many fabulous books. Getting back to Sharif though, in his response to the allegations of fraud, money laundering and maybe bribery, he refuted strongly any wrongdoing, though ridiculously calling for a retired judge to head up an investigation into the whole scandal, which when it has been done before in the past, the outcome amounts to no investigation, which by the way is an old British tradition too, aka the pedophilia scandal that rocked the UK, but has mysteriously disappeared from the headlines[read corporate/government/fascist mainstream press].
There is also the possibility that besides bribery, and theft, drug-running might also be another source for these hidden assets, given that neighboring Afghanistan has grown to have record crops of opium poppy plants, which magically make their way out of Afghanistan, winding up in places like Europe and America, mainly in the form of heroin. The collusion that might be there would likely involve US, and UK intelligence, and possibly one or more local intelligence agencies, with the implicit knowledge of both the NATO/US handpicked Afghani puppets in power, and quite possibly some Pakistani leaders, some of whom are notoriously corrupt. Only by heeding the call of Imran Khan, for total transparency, which he himself abides by already, can anyone get to the heart of the matter, finding out one way or another if Sharif should be tried in a court of law for any crimes the Panama Papers might indicate.
Here in the USA, in the 1970s, the public found out from then CIA director, William Colby, that there were numerous CIA officers who were stationed in major media outlets to control the flow of information to the public[Operation Mockingbird], and Colby was not surprisingly fired for his candor, and replaced by the "oh so" Establishment, George H. W. Bush, who, once he had resealed the CIA's can of worms, went on to be vice president, and then president. Even here in the home of Uncle Sam, scandals like the sickening "Franklin Scandal"[which involved high level pedophilia, drug use and snuff movies], can be made to disappear down the memory hole, almost as easily as a web page can be scrubbed out of existence.
In a burgeoning democracy like Pakistan, where a genuine hero of the common people, like Imran Khan, could save the country from implosion, while the old leaders remain in power, there is still room for chicanery and subterfuge, especially when it still happens in a country as big as the USA. Unless large public demonstrations continue, and thereby political pressure is ratcheted up, Sharif might just escape a real inquiry that otherwise would put him in prison, which certainly looks like a possibility, unless he can fully explain these undeclared assets outside of Pakistan. However the information was leaked, and whether it was for the purposes of a deliberately orchestrated coup d'etat, or regime change, or even blackmail, matters not in the end, since the most important thing is that this nettle has presented itself.
Tariq Ali, a noted New Left intellectual, who undoubtedly would agree with Imran Khan's political platform, on a recent episode of his show, "The World Today," talked at length about the disparity between the upper classes, and lower classes in Pakistan. Only once these inequalities between the poor, middle class and wealthy are sorted out, can thereby peace, stability and true democracy. As long as people remain sheep, very much like in the US, they will be exploited, disregarded, ignored and used up and spit out. Certainly the lower classes are going to be used also by the religious extremists within Pakistan, to further their agenda of forming more of a religious state, then say the secular one that exists in skeletal form right now.
It is the very fact that so very, very many people barely get by economically, that drives them to even seek out the mullahs who would look to take over. So long as things remain in a feudal or serf like state for the majority of Pakistanis, there will be rebellion, terrorism, religious extremism and at times, political assassinations. Now that there is a democratic socialist alternative in the form of Imran Khan, and the Tehreek-e-Insaf, there is finally hope for the downtrodden.
Through continuing the kinds of street protests that have taken place since the Sharif revelations, commanding 100,000 people at times, social cohesion can continue, so long as the protests remain peaceful. Only once, say when Imran Khan ascends to the role of Prime Minister, can we be rest assured that the poor will be lifted up out of poverty, and that other problems, like the US's CIA and military meddling in Pakistan is abruptly ended, and that true peace, and social justice finally comes to Pakistan.
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