28 people acquitted of money laundering charges in Panama Papers and Operation Car Wash case

A judge has acquitted 28 people charged with money laundering in the international case known as the Panama Papers, including the co-founder of a law firm that authorities say was at the center of a plot to hide money related to illegal activities.

Jurgen Mossack founded Mossack & Fonseca with colleague Ramon Fonseca, who died in May. Mossack was acquitted along with others on Friday after a Panamanian judge found that the evidence against Mossack was not consistent with the supply chain after authorities raided the offices of the now-defunct company.

Prosecutors accused Mossack, Fonseca and others of creating offshore companies and using complex transactions to hide money from illegal activities related to the so-called car wash bribery scandal involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to charges of using shell companies to conceal millions in bribes paid around the world to win government contracts.

The judge noted that other evidence in the Panama Papers case “was not sufficient and conclusive to establish defendant’s criminal liability.”

Additionally, according to a court statement, the judge lifted personal and property precautions against all defendants.

“We feel satisfaction despite the mixed emotions because it affected many lives along the way,” Guillermina McDonald, who defended Mossack and Fonseca. Her firm also represented 80 percent of the accused company’s associates, told The Associated Press.

Judge Balaoisa Marquinez decided to combine the Panama Papers case with another case known as “Operation Car Wash,” a major anti-corruption investigation that began in Brazil.

On Friday, she ruled that in the car wash case, “it was not possible to establish that money from illegal sources, originating in Brazil, was introduced into the Panamanian financial system in order to conceal, conceal, disguise or assist in avoiding the legal consequences of a previous crime.”

In June 2022, Mossack, Fonseca and 37 others were acquitted in a separate money laundering case.

The investigation in Brazil began in 2014, and Mossack & Fonseca was later scrutinized after the leak of 11 million financial documents linked to the firm.

The fallout from the leak was widespread: it led to the resignation of Iceland’s prime minister and raised scrutiny among others of former leaders of Argentina and Ukraine, Chinese politicians and Russian President Vladimir Putin.