We're the ICIJ journalists behind the Panama Papers investigation (which we released two years ago today) We're here to answer your questions about the Panama Papers (and the Paradise Papers if you'd like).

Two years on- do you feel the worldwide response to the Panama Papers has been commensurate with the importance of this exposé?

I think there's a lot more to do. But, when I take a step back, there's been a hell of a lot of impact and reform, too. Some of those are big changes -- laws in Panama, Germany and elsewhere. But in some countries, it's a change in the fact that now people think more about secretive shell companies and how powerful citizens use them to the disadvantage of others. Will

I couldn’t get through the phrase “worldwide response to the Panama Papers” without a derisive laugh and a lunge toward the nearest bottle of whiskey.

OP was 9 hours ago and currently has 63 comments. 64 now, I guess. Just sayin’.

I'll be honest, didn't even know this AMA was going on until it hit the front page

We could have done more to promote it too, sorry about that. We're going to try and do another with our data team sometime soon. But we can only do so much!

All of you all are very brave, thank you for the exposé. Many of us would have been suspicious but never would have thought of the depths it went.

Do you feel an elevated sense of danger when going about now? I've been reading about journalists being murdered in Europe with their investigations into corruption.
How do you keep yourself safe?

What other big projects are you all currently working on?

What happened to all the informants that helped made all of this possible? Did bad things happen to them? Are their anonymity successfully guaranteed?

There has been a recent spate of "fake news" bills across the world, what are your professional and personal thoughts about it? Some of the countries have passed it in parliament, others are postponing it.

Thank you, whoisfourthwall. Hearing back from people who read and enjoyed our work (and found it valuable) is really important to keep us motivated.

Definitely, journalists are more alert than they used to be. Even crossing borders and going through airports these days, you wonder if you will be stopped and searched. I think that collaborating can have a protecting effect on journalists. Just by working together you make it harder for someone to stand in your way or silence you. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work as we have seen in Europe recently.

We take protecting sources really seriously. (And we are always looking to hear from more whistleblowers and journalists for new story ideas, too). https://www.icij.org/blog/2018/04/why-you-should-share-your-story-with-icij/

Will

How much actual justice was served based on all the hard work you did?

Hi herdherfer. Let's be honest -- lots of people got away with stashing money offshore. In many countries, no investigations were started because the Big Fish were just too big. But we've seen lots of other countries where hundreds of millions of dollars in total has been recouped and where prosecutions have started.

Any people relevant to the US that are likely to or have already faced prosecution?

Good question! Very hard to find out as the US doesn't speak openly about this stuff. The FBI did tell me in an FOI recently that they couldn't provide any hard information due to ongoing probes. So maybe there is something afoot. Will

Could you shed some light on the involvement of Indian big wigs in the whole fiasco? The whole news was skillfully and adequately hidden here.

Also, thanks for all the great work that you and your team is doing. You havw my respect and awe.

Thanks, anotherrustypic. We appreciate the kind words. I'm afraid I can't really talk about what happened in India much. I know we have great newspaper partners at the Express there. I'd go check out their reporting! Will

How would you describe Julian Assange's reaction to your methods?

#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros.

https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352

Paradise Papers are great and improvement on Panama Papers. but the basic problem, gate keeping nearly everything forever, is still present.

https://mobile.twitter.com/julianassange/status/927541866396037121

We like to think we're improving with every investigation as well!

ICIJ is in the business of public service journalism, and we'll never publish personal, private information en masse without first vetting it and ensuring it's of public interest. All of our stories go through a rigorous fact and legal checking process, and are only published if they meet the highest journalistic standard.

Our Offshore Leaks Database includes corporate data that you'd ordinarily find on any open corporate registry - except that a lot of this data is from jurisdictions that don't have open or easily accessible registries available online. Plus, we might have a bit of bias, but we think our data is a little easier to search.

On the Russian side of things, Putin never really contested our findings - he just said his friends and acquaintances had done nothing wrong (e.g. see this response: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/putin-dismisses-panama-papers-as-an-attempt-to-destabilise-russia). You be the judge.

ICIJ does not take money from USAID or any US government agency. We are open about our funders (including our funding from the Open Society Foundation, which was founded by George Soros), who have absolutely no control over our editorial output - which is exactly why they fund us! They are supporting completely independent journalism. -Hamish

Fantastic. Keep up the good work.

Cheers!

I am surprised no one has asked, but what was the impact on Putin personally?

Hi, mirror_scotty. Hard to say on this. I don't have a direct line to him. But, by many accounts, he wasn't happy. There's a link here to a US intelligence agency report that mentions Panama Papers and Putin in the context of what happened in US election interference. Will. https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/panama-papers-revisited-yogurt-bananas-small-moustaches-fonts/

There was someone who started leaking out details of the Paradise Papers on /r/conspiracy last year, about a month before the actual reporting was released. Is that something you were aware of?

We were aware of the posts on Reddit... but thats all. It wasn’t something anyone at ICIJ did. - Amy

Did you fear for your safety?

Hi Adaraie. I work at ICIJ's Washington D.C. office so I wasn't really concerned for my safety. But I was definitely concerned for some of our partners who report in really tough environments. There was lots of nasty online abuse, law suit threats and some of our partners even had to leave their countries for a few days until things calmed down. Here's a little look at that topic I wrote about: https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20161201-journalists-face-backlash/ - Will

Was there any one conclusion or data point that you feel stood out due to how unexpected it was? Something you didn't plan on seeing that came out in the research?

It's really easy to look at a well-formed article and say, "Well of course!" That's very different from seeing each piece come in live, and I'm curious what stuck with you.

I also think I really enjoyed the work our data team did in using the whole data to track trends in the offshore business. Where people preferred when the BVI fell out of favor, for example. That's how we get a sense of where people are moving their money to when they know they've been sprung somewhere else. https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/explore-panama-papers-key-figures/

Will

Hi there. I'll always remember the email I came across about Iran and when members of the law firm thought they might be doing business, ultimately, with the former president. "I think we could assume that would be mahmoud ahmadinejad unless I'm mistaken." Not the kind of surprise you want during a normal day in the office.

What was the most unexpected consequence of the Panama Papers?

Protesters throwing yogurt in Iceland. I would never have thought to use that as a tool of resistance. - Will

Being Iceland it was probably skyr

It sure was!

What advice do you have for college students looking to pursue journalism on the investigative, international scale you operate on?

Start local! Great journalists are embedded in their local community, and know what's important to their audiences. Some of the best investigative stories have deep roots within local communities, and can then point towards a bigger issue that might be national or even international. That's where collaboration comes in - if your local story has a broader angle to it, reach out to others and see if they're willing to work together. You can even pitch it to ICIJ!

College is a great place to start thinking like this, because you've got great access to other academic disciplines (can the computer science folk help you with that data, can the law school help you decipher that document?) and other colleges for collaboration (rivalries aside, if there's an issue important to your college, it's probably important to other colleges too).

-Hamish

+1 starting local is the best. You learn so much (and get a thick skin!) by being a reporter in a local community. - Amy

(1) Someone was mentioning to me that few if any Americans were exposed by the Panama/Paradise Papers because the US Gov does a pretty good job of tracking Americans that attempt to use these services and using extraterritorial prosecution to punish them for US tax evasion. Is this broadly correct?

(2) If the above assertion is broadly correct, this gives the US Gov/Intelligence Community (IC) a motive to help in exposing the Panama/Paradise Papers as the downside is likely to be overwhelmingly felt by the foreign elites of US strategic competitors. I'm definitely not accusing you of being US IC, but is it possible they assisted you without your knowledge?

There are a few nuances hidden deep in the weeds of these investigations that are important to understand... and it all boils down to the nature of the information leaked to us. The Panama and Paradise Papers were (largely) from just three offshore service providers - three out of hundreds. So, although the data is extremely comprehensive and there's a lot of it, it's still only a snapshot of a much, much larger industry.

We know that Mossack Fonseca (Panama Papers) didn't have many U.S. clients (they themselves said this), and we also know that Appleby (Paradise Papers) did have a lot more U.S. clients, which is why the Paradise Papers included more stories on prominent Americans (such as people linked to Donald Trump and his administration).

We also know that some U.S. states (e.g. Delaware) have been labelled tax havens and already offer financial secrecy without people having to go offshore.

The U.S. does try to tax its citizens around the world. But it's also home to multinational corporations that have perfected the art of tax avoidance.

So, with all that said and done... you can see that it's a hugely complicated situation. In terms of the U.S. intelligence communities and their motivations? Hopefully they're busy chasing down criminals, and not meddling in journalism. -Hamish

Why did this AMA get so little attention? Seems fishy

Probably one of the most important AMAs in this website's history, and totally swept under the rug and almost completely ignored. I stumbled on it purely by accident, and almost didn't even click on it until I realized what it was. It's a sad state of affairs.

It's weird that it's only hitting the front page at 2 am Eastern. They should absolutely just do this again, acknowledge the weird downvoting, and force another response

We'd love to do another one! And we will try. We did one just after the Paradise Papers was released too. We'll be back - don't worry!

Who are your journalistic inspirations?

From my perspective given what I do at ICIJ, it's definitely the awesome investigative journalists in Africa we work with. Moussa Aksar in Niger, Maxime Domegni in Togo, Sandrine Sawadogo in Burkina Faso, Shino Imannuel in Namibia, Alvin Ntibinyane in Botswana. These people do really great work and get amazing documents and access through pure hard work. - Will

Do you think the Panama Papers had an effect on the 2016 election?

The U.S. election? The best guide on this probably comes from the various intelligence agencies that have been looking into external influences on the election. Here's a piece from the New York Times that sums up what the intelligence agencies found: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/politics/russian-hack-report.html

-Hamish

Thanks for your fantastic work and efforts! One of the things I've been waiting for for quite some time is the involvement of AI in investigations, even if it's just the use of AI truth detection algorithms on videos to track down potential leads. But with lawyers starting to use AI to assist them, have journalists also found uses for that to supplement their work?

Good question! I'm not from ICIJ's data team, so I'm no expert in the wizardry they perform to make our data searchable, but I do know they're always experimenting with new technology to help make the lives of our reporters easier and help us get more from our data.

I don't think we've used AI much, but I know we're looking at improving entity extraction from within large datasets, and have made a lot of headway with getting journalists to use more powerful database tools (like graph databases through Neo4j and Linkurious), particularly when it comes to recognising patterns in networked data.

We do encourage our data gurus and tech geniuses to document their processes and write about the technology they use (and the tech trends they're following) on our blog, so we'll pass your question on and see if we can't squeeze a post out of them about AI and journalism sometime in the not-too-distant future!

-Hamish

Do you feel that the disqualification of the Pakistani Prime Minister after his family was implicated in the papers was justified or that the verdict was unfair (based off what his supporters say)?

Our job as journalists is to investigate and bring issues of public interest to light. It's then up to society to respond - which can take the form of official action (investigations, arrests), court decisions, parliamentary debates, public discussions and more. That's why it's so important that when we publish, we get it right.

We stand by all our Panama Papers reporting, including our stories on the Pakistani Prime Minister's family and their links to offshore companies. How the authorities and the public chose to respond was entirely up to their democratic system. -Hamish

Is the raw data available as a csv or MySQL database somewhere?

Info on how to download our Offshore Leaks Database is here!

Hello. Am I late at the party?

My question is Do you think globally, the articles blocked some money to be transfered in paradises? Or was it bad for Panama and good for others?

It's still early here in Australia (I'm based in Sydney), so you're fine! Welcome!

I think the global attention has certainly changed the game for these offshore law and wealth management firms, and has helped force a lot of tax havens to clean up their acts. But if there's one thing offshore service providers are good at, it's finding new loopholes when old ones close.

So here we are, two years later, still investigating financial secrecy and encouraging transparency... send us your tips! -Hamish

send us your tips!

If we get some, what would be the best course to contact the ICIJ team?

If you want to contact us securely there is a few ways listed here!

• Encrypted email – [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), our public key fingerpint: 986A 572D 3B95 BD42 331E 839A B532 F18C 2A17 696B
• WhatsApp – Phone/Message: +1-202-820-0036
• Wire – Username: ICIJ
• Signal – Phone: +1-202-820-0036
• Peerio – Username: ICIJ
• Keybase – Username: ICIJ
• Postal Mail –ICIJ 910 17th Street NW,Suite 410, Washington, DC 20006, USA
• SecureDrop: Explained in detail here.

Not too late!

How much money do you make a year as journalists? What's your yearly salary at the newspapers/news agencies that employ you?

ICIJ's model is quite unique - we work predominantly with journalists already employed by media outlets in their own country. So we don't pay their salary (or even know what they do or don't get paid!). It's one way we're able to do these global investigations so economically, because we're all pooling our resources and sharing the cost across a hundred media outlets.

As for us humble ICIJ team members... we're certainly not rich, but we're not starving either. We're really lucky to be able to work for an independent, nonprofit organization that actually lets us take our time to properly investigate, and that supports our work as journalists. I daresay if you asked any ICIJ staff member, they'd tell you that the ability to take part in a great investigative story comes before an amazing salary any day. But maybe I'm just naive. -Hamish

Why won't you allow the public to inspect the original content as other sites such as Wikileaks?

We get asked this a bit... As Hamish explained earlier, we are in the business of public service journalism, and we'll never publish personal, private information en masse without first vetting it and ensuring it's of public interest.

All of our stories go through a rigorous fact and legal checking process, and are only published if they meet the highest journalistic standard.

Our Offshore Leaks Database includes corporate data that you'd ordinarily find on any open corporate registry - except that a lot of this data is from jurisdictions that don't have open or easily accessible registries available online. Plus, we might have a bit of bias, but we think our data is a little easier to search.

-Amy

do you find it interesting how such a big story disappeared so quickly from the news ?

As a journalist, I think this is a growing battle for every important story (not just ours). There is so much information flying around these days, we like to think ICIJ is just one of a cohort of trusted media outlets for our readers. - Amy

Could someone kindly explain what "--" means? I've never seen this anywhere before, but its many of the OPs' responses. Ty!

It’s some formatting issue >=( We use the new beta reddit and it seems to be coming out whack. It looks different now than it did before! Sorry! It’s annoying eh? - Amy

Thanks for your response, Amy! To the contrary, I thought it was a hip, new, journalism lingo that was like a critical intervention into... some language convention... or an NSA tracking deflector thinger. Maybe you've started something fun! Counter-culture kinda fun!

Haha, as a journalist it makes me cringe! I’m glad someone thinks we at ICIJ are hip! ;)

Where does Savage Garden keep their money?

On a mountain or in the sea, judging by some of their lyrics.

Is there a next step you have planned for the investigation? Is there an area of the investigation you feel there is more to uncover?

Great work, this style of investigative journalism is inspiring.

The amazing this about this data (and the Paradise Papers) is that there is always something new. I look at the data almost every day and I often find new story ideas, new names of politicians, even. For example, someone who wasn't in politics two years ago but is now standing for president in some country -- we might only realize his or her importance now.

Nawaz Sharif and his children had their name on the list and yet they deny it. What do you have to say to them?

Howdy! Hamish actually answered this in another question yesterday, so I thought I'd share that here. - Amy

Our job as journalists is to investigate and bring issues of public interest to light. It's then up to society to respond - which can take the form of official action (investigations, arrests), court decisions, parliamentary debates, public discussions and more. That's why it's so important that when we publish, we get it right.

We stand by all our Panama Papers reporting, including our stories on the Pakistani Prime Minister's family and their links to offshore companies. How the authorities and the public chose to respond was entirely up to their democratic system. -Hamish

Thank you so much for you work. My first in depth introduction into the panama papers was through the podcast “Reveal” and for a hour based podcast they did a great job of explaining the basics of what happened. Are there any other podcasts/audio programs you would recommend that go more in-depth with reporting on the Panama papers?

podcasts/audio programs

Hi. I can think of a few podcasts: this one involves ICIJ's deputy director and some great reporters. https://the1a.org/shows/2017-04-13/the-panama-papers-one-year-later

The Tax Justice Network also does lots of interesting podcasts on these issues, including special ones on Panama P. https://www.taxjustice.net/2017/04/20/panama-papers-1-year-april-2017-tax-justice-network-podcast/

In regards to the cultural significance of investigations such as this one do you feel like we’ve hit the point where high net worth targets are more fearful of being caught and brought into the media spotlight for money laundering/ tax evasion or is the problem getting worse?

I’d imagine your work must have greatly changed the ways these backroom deals happen. Congrats and good job breaking this story.

Edit. Sorry I’m a bit late to the party. I had no idea this was happening today

Good question. I've seen plenty of leaked PowerPoint presentations and spoken to lots of lawyers and experts who say, definitely, many wealthy people have just decided that the risk of seeing their name on the front page is too great and so they are more cautious about what they do with their money.

That said, we know that if you have enough money to protect or hide, there will still be plenty of people, banks, lawyers accountants, etc willing to help you. So there is more work to be done.

How can one help?

Donate.

Agreed! Donate https://www.icij.org/blog/2017/10/donate-to-icij-and-double-your-impact/

What are you most proud of in regards to the consequences that have occurred following the release of the Panama Papers?

What's the dream/goal y'all have been striving for when it comes to the consequences and justice that must be imposed on the perpetrators?

What do you feel has been overlooked?

Are you guys getting more anonymous tips now? Anything about UFOs yet?

So many anonymous tips. I'm convinced that there will be more big projects like Panama Papers in the future. So we'd be crazy not to check our mail, our inbox, Secure Drop, Signal, etc. All the ways ICIJ has for people to contact us.

I think one of the best results of Panama Papers was making offshore finance and its flaws more of a public issue than ever. The more light that is shone on it, the harder it will be for some people to misuse it.

Do you think that offshore havens are a natural by-product of a world wide capitalist market coupled with the ability of each country to determine their own laws regarding finance?

Definitely nothing "natural" about what I saw in the Panama Papers. Countries choose to introduce these laws that allow tax havens to emerge and thrive. Politicians like to use offshore havens -- they could also in large part choose to close them down.