Warsaw Hosts Meeting of Special Investigators on Panama Papers

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — A meeting of the special investigating group devoted to the newly posted Panama Papers online database, which includes at least 149 Polish names, is underway on Tuesday in Warsaw, local media reported.

On Monday, the International Consortium of Independent Journalists (ICIJ) published documents on 320,000 offshore accounts that were leaked from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

According to the RMF24 radio broadcaster, the investigating group consists of representatives from Poland's Tax Office, Finance Ministry and Central Anti-Corruption Bureau. Wlodzimierz Burkacki, a prosecutor from the Department of Organized Crime and Corruption, is leading the group. The first large-scale report on the issue is expected to be presented later in the day, according to the broadcaster.

In April, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung exposed the alleged involvement of the world's wealthy elite, including a number of former and current leaders, in offshore schemes by publishing information it claimed came from Mossack Fonseca.

Mossack Fonseca responded to the April report by refusing to validate the information contained in the leaks and accused reporters of gaining unauthorized access to some of its proprietary documents.

Initially, the Panama Papers database contained three Poles — Pawel Piskorski, the former mayor of Warsaw and two major entrepreneurs Mariusz Walter and Marek Profus. The broadcaster noted that the newly released list of 146 names are less significant, although some are connected to the two richest Poles Ryszard Krauze and Zbigniew Jakubas.