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Panama Papers day one: Revelations over offshore accounts reverberate across the world from 'biggest leak ever' - as it happened

More than 11 million records from a law firm have been released to media outlets around the world

Lizzie Dearden
Monday 04 April 2016 09:48 BST
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View of a sign outside the building where Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm offices are placed in Panama City on April 3, 2016.
View of a sign outside the building where Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm offices are placed in Panama City on April 3, 2016. (AFP/Getty Images)

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The offshore financial dealings of the rich and famous have been revealed by a huge cache of legal documents. Here are the latest updates:

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The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), a nonprofit group based in Washington, said the cache of 11.5 million records detailed the offshore holdings of a dozen current and former world leaders, as well as businessmen, criminals, celebrities and sports stars.

A co-founder of the Panamanian-based law firm where the documents originated, Mossack Fonseca, confirmed the authenticity of the papers and said thay were obtained illegally in a hacking attack.

The ICIJ said the law firm's leaked internal files contain information on 214,488 offshore entities connected to people in more than 200 countries and territories.

Among the countries with past or present political figures named in the reports are Iceland, Ukraine, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Argentina.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing or illegality by Mossack Fonseca or any of the individuals, banks and companies.

Bastian Obermayer, a reporter for Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, said: “To our knowledge this is the biggest leak that journalists have ever worked on."

Additional reporting by agencies

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