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Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the heart of an international financial controversy over off-short corporations used to hide assets, used to list its Florida office in this residential building in downtown Miami. The firm no longer lists the address on its site.(Photo: Alan Gomez, USA TODAY)
MIAMI<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— The Panama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>law<span style="color: Red;">*</span>firm that has helped<span style="color: Red;">*</span>companies, political leaders and other wealthy<span style="color: Red;">*</span>individuals hide<span style="color: Red;">*</span>assets in off-shore accounts has made itself<span style="color: Red;">*</span>exceedingly difficult<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to locate<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in the United States.
Mossack Fonseca, the firm whose internal records<span style="color: Red;">*</span>were hacked and disclosed worldwide Sunday, once listed on its website that it had an office in Miami, known as the Gateway to the Americas. That makes sense, since<span style="color: Red;">*</span>many Latin American companies<span style="color: Red;">*</span>operate in and out of the city.
But<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Mossack Fonseca's Miami operations have virtually disappeared<span style="color: Red;">*</span>since the leak of what are now known as the Panama Papers. The 11.5 million documents expose<span style="color: Red;">*</span>how world leaders, their relatives and their associates keep<span style="color: Red;">*</span>business dealings and vast sums of money hidden.
The firm's operations in Wyoming and Nevada are just as obscure. In Wyoming, the firm's representative,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>AAA Corporate Services, is housed in a three-story yellow brick building in Cheyenne's historic downtown. In Nevada,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Patricia Amunategui, a registered agent for the firm works in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a small office building 20 miles from the Las Vegas strip, she testified in a 2015 Nevada court case.
Nearly all of the 1,000-plus corporations that USA TODAY<span style="color: Red;">*</span>has identified as being created by Mossack Fonseca in the U.S. are based<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Wyoming and Nevada. Those states have permissive corporate secrecy laws.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Wyoming, in particular, allows<span style="color: Red;">*</span>corporations to be formed without any individual<span style="color: Red;">*</span>named in corporate records.
USA TODAY
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The firm's website no longer lists a Miami office. Only<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a page archived by Google shows that the listing once existed on its website.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Florida state records show that Olga Santini, the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>firm's representative<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Miami, is a manager<span style="color: Red;">*</span>for "MF Consult LLC." Yet<span style="color: Red;">*</span>her profile on the online business-networking site LinkedIn is no longer active, and she has no listed phone number or email address.
The archived Mossack Fonseca website and Florida state records both list an address for the firm's offices in Miami, but that traces back to a two-bedroom condo unit in a waterfront<span style="color: Red;">*</span>residential building called "The Palace." The building is located in a gleaming business district in Miami called Brickell and was once featured in an episode of the 1980s television crime drama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Miami Vice.
This<span style="color: Red;">*</span>USA TODAY<span style="color: Red;">*</span>reporter visited the building Wednesday, but was told that Santini wasn't available.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>In a statement, Santini<span style="color: Red;">*</span>denied being an employee of Mossack Fonseca, instead saying she was an "independent service provider" who did work for the firm, as well as others.
"I cannot address any particular client issues except to say that it is my practice to conduct significant due diligence on my clients and it is my personal policy to fully comply with the letter and spirit of the law in every jurisdiction," she said.
Mossack Fonseca did not respond to questions regarding its<span style="color: Red;">*</span>U.S. operations. But in a statement on its website, the firm said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>its<span style="color: Red;">*</span>work in the United States<span style="color: Red;">*</span>is legal.
"Incorporating companies is the normal activity of lawyers and agents around the world," the statement said.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"Services such as company formations, registered agent, and others are frequently used and provided in many worldwide jurisdictions, including the United States and the United Kingdom."
Contributing: Steve Reilly, John Kelly and Trevor Hughes
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