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Here are 12 of the 140 politicians worldwide who have been linked to Mossack Fonseca either directly or by association. Video by Jasper Colt and Caleb Calhoun, USA TODAY
Benjamin Wey, CEO of New York Global Group, bottom left, leaves Manhattan Federal Court Wednesday, June 24, 2015, in New York. Wey is one of several prominent American businessmen whose names have surfaced in the Panama Papers.(Photo: Frank Franklin II, AP)
The names of hundreds of Americans have surfaced in the Panama Papers, including a handful of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>U.S. businessmen accused or convicted by U.S. authorities for ties to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>financial crimes or Ponzi schemes.
The identities of the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Americans emerged from<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the treasure trove of documents obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and hundreds of other media organizations.
The consortium has so far identified more than 200 people with U.S. addresses who own companies in the leaked data from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. Some appear to be retirees purchasing real estate in places like Costa Rica and Panama, according to the consortium. But there are at least a few<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Americans in the leaked files who have faced charges for<span style="color: Red;">*</span>serious financial crimes in the U.S.
Here are some of the Americans who have been charged or convicted of financial crimes that have surfaced in the massive data leak, according to the media consortium. Their identities were first reported by McClatchy Newspapers.
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Benjamin Wey<span style="color: Red;">*</span>, a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Wall Street financier,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was charged in September with securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering <span style="color: Red;">*</span>for using family members to help him stealthily amass ownership of larger blocks of stock in companies<span style="color: Red;">*</span>through so-called “reverse merger” transactions between Chinese companies and U.S. shell companies. In the process, he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>reaped tens of millions of dollars of illegal profit by manipulating the companies’ stock prices, the indictment charges. Prosecutors say<span style="color: Red;">*</span>he was aided by his<span style="color: Red;">*</span>banker<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Switzerland, Seref Dogan Erbek, who was also charged in the alleged<span style="color: Red;">*</span>scheme.
The shell companies were incorporated offshore, according to the indictment. McClatchy reports Mossack Fonseca helped set up the offshore companies used in the stock manipulation. Wey in a message via Twitter said that there is no evidence that he's ever owned a foreign account, controlled a foreign account or been a signatory of any account set up by Panamanian law firm.
“Ben Wey fashioned himself a master of industry, but as alleged, he was merely a master of manipulation," said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Attorney of New York, in announcing Wey's indictment.
Wey, president of the New York Global Group,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>also made headlines last year when a jury awarded an $18 million verdict to a former intern who had accused Wey of sexual harassment and stalking. (A judge last week said he would give Wey a new damages trial if the plaintiff, Hanna Bouveng,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>did not agree to reduce damages to $5.65 million, Reuters reported.)<span style="color: Red;">*</span><span style="color: Red;">*</span>The young woman said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Wey coerced<span style="color: Red;">*</span>her into four sexual encounters and then<span style="color: Red;">*</span>fired<span style="color: Red;">*</span>her after finding out that she had a boyfriend.
Wey denies that he ever had sex with Bouveng, and says her lawsuit, in which she initially sought $850 million, is an extortion attempt.
Igor Olenicoff, the Russian-born billionaire and commercial real estate mogul, was listed as a shareholder of Olen Oil Management Limited in the leaked data. He was sentenced in 2007 to two years of probation for tax evasion and forced to pay a $52 million fine for failing to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>declare<span style="color: Red;">*</span>more than $200 million stashed in offshore shell companies. Olenicoff's California-based firm owns thousands of residential and commercial properties.
In 2014, the real estate tycoon was ordered to pay $450,000 to sculptor Don Wakefield in damages after<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Olenicoff and his company were found to have cloned several large-scale, abstract sculptures from the artist that were used to decorate various properties.
Robert Miracle,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of Bellevue, Wash., was sentenced in 2011 to 13 years in prison and three years of supervised release for mail fraud and tax evasion for his part in a $65 million Ponzi scheme involving an Indonesia oilfield.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>
Miracle sold shares in Laramie Petroleum, MCube Petroleum, Diski Limited Liability Company, Basilam Limited Liability Company, and Halmahera-Rembang Limited Liability Company. The Washington man and his co-defendents told investors the companies made<span style="color: Red;">*</span>money from oil field development and services on oil and gas fields in Indonesia. In fact, the proceeds of later investors were being used to pay off the investments of earlier investors,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>according to the Justice Department.
Between September 2004 and October 2007, Miracle took in more than $65.3 million and paid out $36.7 million in the dividends.
“The bulk of the remaining funds were used to develop oil and gas fields in Indonesia, as well as to pay for a lavish lifestyle for Miracle,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western District of Washington said in a statement at time of his guilty plea.
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John Michael “Red" Crim<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was convicted in Philadelphia in 2008, along with two associates, for being part of a plot in which he recruited investors to use phony trusts to cheat the IRS out of $10 million in revenue.
Crim,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>co-founder of the Texas-based Commonwealth Trust Company,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“encouraged investors to place income and assets into trusts for the purpose of evading federal income taxes,” according the office of the U.S. Attorney's Office<span style="color: Red;">*</span>for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He was sentenced to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>eight years in prison.
The consortium also reports Jonathan Kaplan, a former Massachusetts executive implicated in a bribery scheme more than eight years<span style="color: Red;">*</span>ago, was among those whose names who surfaced in the papers.
Kaplan in 2008 was sentenced to five years of probation for his part in accepting more than $400,000 in kickbacks from a Jordanian national. Kaplan, vice president of iBasis, a Massachusetts company that supplied prepaid calling cards to retail distributors, allegedly gave favorable pricing, credit terms and inside information to Jordanian national Fares Khraisat, the owner and operator of Zam-Zam Telecard, based in Bridgeport, Conn.
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Follow USA TODAY Chicago correspondent<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Aamer Madhani on Twitter:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>@AamerISmad
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