German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung made history last month when it revealed that it had received 11.5 million documents pertaining to shell companies around the world that originated from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
The leak incriminated numerous companies and prominent individuals in attempts to ship their money off to tax havens and to hide their wealth.
It isn’t easy for a single publication’s team to unpack all that data in a reasonable amount of time, so SZ teamed up with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) to sift through the 2.6TB trove. And now, you can take a peek at some of the files yourself.
The global organization has launched a searchable database that contains a fraction of the files it received, including the names of 368,000 people and companies found in the investigation.
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You can search search for people, companies and addresses and filter by jurisdiction, as well as download the data.
Of course, it may not be easy to find big names like Russian President Vladimir Putin as he channeled his money through associates. You’ll need to use your detective skills to track down those responsible, and when you do, you’ll be able to see visualizations of how these people are connected to companies and banks.
If you want to understand just how politicians, star athletes and business moguls route their money offshore instead, give the Stairway to Tax Heaven game a go.
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