What Is Panama Papers And What Are The Countries Implicated in

The Panama Papers form a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents created by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca that provide detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors. The documents name current government leaders from five countries — Argentina, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates — as well as government officials, close relatives and close associates of various heads of government of more than 40 other countries, including Brazil, China, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Syria and the United Kingdom.

Comprising documents created since the 1970s that amount to 2.6 terabytes of data, they were given by an anonymous source to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in August 2015 and subsequently to the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The papers were distributed to and analyzed by about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than 80 countries. The first news reports based on the set, along with 149 of the documents themselves, were published on April 3, 2016, but a full list of companies is to be released in early May 2016.

See who's implicated — and from where — below. (We will continue to update this list as more information emerges.)

1-ICELAND

Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson was found to be using offshore tax havens. When he was asked about this during an interview, he simply walked out.
Thousands of Icelanders on Monday gathered at the Parliament House in protest, throwing yogurt and toilet paper.

2-MEXICO

Mexican magnate Juan Armando Hinojosa Cantu, whose company once purchased a mansion for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto's wife, hid at least $100 million in offshore companies managed by Mossack Fonseca.
Also, Guadalajara Cartel cofounder Rafael Caro Quintero operated a company through Mossack Fonseca.

3-PAKISTAN

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family own property in Pakistan and London’s tony Mayfair neighborhood.

4-RUSSIA

Russia President Vladimir Putin's close friend and godfather to his child, concert cellist Sergei Roldugin, agreed to be a front for the Russian president to launder $2 billion to offshore accounts. The operation was run by Bank Rossiya, which is under American and European sanctions following Moscow's annexation of Crimea.

5-SYRIA

Two cousins connect Syria President Bashar al-Assad to the Panama Papers.

6-UNITED KINGDOM

Prime Minister David Cameron's late father, Ian Cameron, allegedly ran an offshore fund that paid nothing in U.K. tax for three decades.

7-UKRAINE

Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko became the sole shareholder in an offshore British Virgin Islands company while his army was surrounded and hundreds of troops were slaughtered by Russian forces in the eastern town of Ilovaisk in August 2014.

8- ARGENTINA

President Mauricio Macri, his father, and brother Mariano were on the board of directors of an offshore company registered in the Bahamas since 1998, the daily La Nación reported. The company was in operation until 2009, two years into Macri’s tenure as Buenos Aires mayor.
In a statement, the government said that Macri was never a stakeholder in the company, even though he was “circumstantially” its CEO.
Aside from football megastar Lionel Messi, other prominent Argentines linked to the “Panama Papers” include a former private secretary to the late ex-president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and a senior aide to Macri when the president was Buenos Aires mayor.

9-PERU

Two major supporters of Keiko Fujimori — who is leading the polls in Peru’s upcoming presidential election — have undeclared interests in offshore companies set up by Mossack Fonseca, according to the news website Ojo Público.
Others linked with offshore companies set up by the Panamanian firm include Peru’s leading timber company as well as three renowned local chefs, Ojo Publico said.

The leak of the Panama Papers is significant in part because of the specific information the documents contain, but more broadly because they draw attention to what "everyone knows" and may put public pressure on the powers that be to do something about it let's wait for the next days for more information.
(Source: The Panama Papers)