Panama Papers: huge tax leak exposes Putin aides, world leaders

The release of the Panama Papers may introduce most people to the secretive law

firm that created offshore corporations that helped world leaders hide assets,

but MOSSACK FONSECA was already well known

to investigators and prosecutors around the world. 

The Panama City firm,

created in the 1980s through a merger

of the law practices of German-born

Jurgen Mossack and Panamanian lawyer Ramon Fonseca,

has long been in the middle of investigations

into money-laundering, corruption and government graft.

The Panama Papers,

from around 214,000 offshore entities covering almost 40 years,

also name the president of Ukraine and the king of Saudi Arabia,

as well as sporting and movie stars including Jackie Chan.

Putin  Implicated

Among the biggest findings of the media probe,

which fingered about 140 political figures including 12 current or former heads of state:

Banks, companies and close associates of Putin,

who is not himself named in the documents,

"secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies"

, according to the ICIJ. These allegations were not aired by Russian state TV.

The families of some of China's top communist brass

-- including the nation's president

 -- used offshore tax havens to conceal their fortunes.

At least eight current or former members of the Politburo Standing Committee,

the ruling Communist Party's most powerful body, have been implicated.
A member of FIFA's ethics committee,

Juan Pedro Damiani, had business ties with three men indicted in a corruption scandal. 

 Argentine football great Lionel Messi and his father

are named as owners of a Panama company,

Mega Star Enterprises, that has not previously been disclosed

in a Spanish tax probe into their affairs.

UEFA chief Michel Platini used Mossack Fonseca

to administer an offshore company, 

 but he denied wrongdoing in a statement to AFP.