BRUSSELS: The Panama Papers scandal continues to reveal more intriguing things from the world’s elite business and political circles. This time, the light fell upon the biggest Belgian diamond companies, which turned out were also involved in the shady business of offshore set ups in small island nations, the Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported.
Five out of ten of the biggest diamond companies from Antwerp are involved in the Panama Papers scandal.
“Out of the ten largest diamond companies in the Antwerp area five used the services of Mossack Fonseca to set up offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Niue, Samoa, Anguilla,” the Belgian newspaper said.
Besides the large companies, the names of 65 well-known diamond merchants appeared in Mossack Fonseca leaked documents, the Brussels Times reported.
On April 3, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung published materials it claimed came from Mossack Fonseca. The leak appeared to expose the alleged involvement of a number of world leaders and other officials in tax avoidance schemes.
The Panama Papers are a set of 11.5 million confidential documents detailing information about more than 214,000 offshore companies compiled by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, including the identities of company shareholders and directors.
