He remained silent for six years. But today, the man behind the revelations of the 2016 ‘Panama Papers’, one of the biggest financial scandals in history, has decided to speak up. Without going out of anonymity for reasons of personal security, the man who calls himself “John Doe” (the equivalent, in English, of “Mister X”) and presents himself as a whistleblower, granted a exclusive interview with the two German journalistsBastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier, who worked at the Suddeutsche Zeitung when the survey came out and who are now at the head of Paper Trail Mediaan investigative media outlet associated with the weekly Spiegel.
It was to them that John Doe had transmitted the confidential data that had served as the basis for the “Panama Papers”, a giant leak of information from a law firm in Panama, specializing in the creation of offshore companies for wealthy people, corrupt politicians, tax evaders and criminal networks.
This data was then shared with 107 media around the world – including The world –, coordinated by a consortium of investigative journalism, the ICIJ, and had resulted in a collaborative journalistic investigation of global scope which had revealed the extent of the hiding of funds in tax havens and the loss of income for States.
The “Panama Papers” had caused a global shock wave, between monster demonstrations in the streets of London and Reykjavik, resignation of senior politicians (including former Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson), opening of judicial and tax investigations around the world… More than 1.3 billion dollars (1.15 billion euros) in tax revenues have been recovered to date by countries around the world, including 126 million euros in France. The counter is still ticking.
So far, the mysterious John Doe has only spoken publicly on one occasion, in a manifesto published a month after the “Panama Papers”, calling for a fight against inequality in the world. But in the interview he gives to our German colleagues, conducted a few weeks ago using an Internet connection and encryption software, the source of the “Panama Papers” lifts the veil on his deep motivations. In a world plagued by “instability”, he warns against the proliferation of front companies and the use made of them by authoritarian regimes: they are the ones who “finance the Russian army and kill innocent civilians in Ukraine,” he said. Worried about the risks he runs for having revealed the secrets of “international criminal organizations, some of which are linked to governments”, John Doe affirms that he will wait “until he is on his deathbed to [se] to unveil “.
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