What took a year of secrecy by four hundred investigative journalists to uncover and ultimately shatter the world as we know it – some have called it the potential fall of capitalism – is now damning the people we kind of already knew were naughty.

While there are a few leaders of state along with their families and close business associates involved in the scandal of the year, there are many famous faces that got looped in, too.

Famous people in the film industry include Pedro Almodóvar, Amitabh Bachchan and Jackie Chan – and then there’s football superstar Lionel Messi along with 20 others. Here’s the lowdown on the two biggest names:

Jackie Chan

The actor was named in the documents leak on Sunday and is believed to have six companies represented by Mossack Fonseca, the AFP reports. Meanwhile, Bollywood film star Amitabh Bachchan was named as the director of four shipping companies established 23 years ago, while his daughter-in-law, actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, was named as a former director and shareholder of an offshore company.

Lionel Messi

The world-famous football star was named in the documents along with 20 other high-profile players. In addition to Messi, FIFA officials and the suspended former chief of UEFA, Michel Platini, were also named. Messi and his father, Jorge, have previously been accused of tax fraud after allegedly failing to declare $4.74 million in taxes and are due to stand trial in May.

Mossack Fonseca released a lengthy statement in response to the leak and said it “cannot provide response to questions that pertain to specific matters, as doing so would be a breach of our policies and legal obligation to maintain client confidentiality.”

“However, we can confirm the parties in many of the circumstances you cite are not and have never been clients of Mossack Fonseca,” it said.

“We regret any misuse of companies that we incorporate or the services we provide and take steps wherever possible to uncover and stop such use,” Mossack Fonseca said. “If we detect suspicious activity or misconduct, we are quick to report it to the authorities.”

With all the information pertaining to who, what and when (the papers span 40 years) it’s going to be interesting to see how everything plays out.

[source: newsweek]

[imagesource: theintercept]