The Shell Game

Power Corrupts

Brian Klaas

News, Politics, 498122

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When it comes to understanding the underworld of corruption and criminality, you can’t just look at the rich crooks. You also have to look at the lawyers who help them dot the i’s and cross the t’s as they try to stash their illicit cash somewhere offshore. And to accomplish that goal, you have to understand the world of shell companies, corporate entities that often exist only on paper to shield vast sums of wealth from the taxman or the prying eyes of journalists.

It’s a dangerous world, and it has led to the assassination of at least one journalist who tried to expose the secrets of the world’s super rich.

In this episode, we speak to the two journalists who broke the Panama Papers – the largest leak of offshore documents in the history of illicit finance. They walk us through the world they uncovered at Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama, that helped set up some of the world’s shadiest shell companies for some of the world’s shadiest people.

Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier (who are not related) took immense personal risks to blow the story wide open. They tell us how they did it – and what secrets they uncovered about the ways the world’s richest people make up their own rules.

For further information about the Panama Papers, go here: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/

And for the Daphne Project, visit this site:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/the-daphne-project

Pre order Brian's book - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Corruptible/Brian-Klaas/9781982154097

Support the show on Patreon at Patreon.com/powercorrupts

Transcript

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0:00.0	The season of power corrupts is ad-free.
0:02.8	I'm not going to tell you about overpriced socks or some random mortgage website.
0:06.6	But if you want to support the show by helping to offset the cost of making power corrupts,
0:10.8	there are two ways you can pitch in.
0:12.8	First, pre-order my new book, Corruptible, Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us,
0:17.5	which comes out on November 9th.
0:19.5	If you like this podcast, I promise you'll love this book.
0:22.5	Second, become a Patreon subscriber for just $3 euros or pounds per month
0:28.0	and get access to exclusive bonus content and more.
0:31.4	Go to patreon.com slash power corrupts.
0:34.6	Thanks for listening and for your support.
0:38.8	The burned wreck of Daphne, Karawana Galicia's car lies in a multi's field,
0:44.0	flung over a wall by an explosion which killed the crusading journalist.
0:48.4	53-year-old Karawana Galicia was famous for leading the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta.
0:55.0	She also ran a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly focused on cases of alleged high-level corruption targeting politicians from across party lines.
1:04.6	Her assassination may have silenced her, but the questions she was asking, they haven't gone away.
1:11.0	Some of her allegations were based on revelations in the so-called Panama Papers League in 2015.
1:17.0	Over 11 million documents gave details of the person.
1:21.0	On October 16, 2017, Daphne Karunia Galicia was driving near her home in her Pugeo 108 when a car bomb exploded, killing her instantly.
1:32.0	The explosion was so powerful that the car splintered into pieces which were blown far away from the blast site.
1:39.0	The remains of the investigative journalist were discovered nearly 80 meters away.
1:46.0	Galicia's killers had been stalking her, staying up until 2am watching her through a long lens telescope,
	...

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