First came the story. Then, the death threats. Helene Mathieu, a Quebec-trained offshore lawyer named in the launch of the Panama Papers in April, 2016, felt the impact of the world’s largest ever leak in a personal way. “We received death threats and had to contact law enforcement authorities to ensure that no one was in danger,” Mathieu wrote in response to questions from the Star this week. Among the hundreds of companies Mathieu registered offshore for Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the centre of the scandal, were three sanctioned by the U.S. government for aiding the Syrian government in the bombing of its own citizens, the Star and the CBC reported at the time. “There was and there is still nothing illegal,” she told the Star this week. “Hundreds of law firms around the world used Mossack Fonseca as registered agents in several jurisdictions and our law firm was one of them. Several companies have been listed on the (U.S. sanction list) and we unfortunately assisted in the incorporation of three of those companies.”Newly leaked documents from within Mossack Fonseca detail the internal panic and chaos in the days leading up to — and after — publication of the Panama Papers as it became clear journalists had 11.5 million records from inside one of the world’s largest offshore tax haven law firms. Mossack Fonseca couldn’t identify tens of thousands of owners of companies it had registered in opaque, low-tax jurisdictions, the new records show. Two months after the firm became aware of the records breach, it still couldn’t identify owners of more than 70 per cent of 28,500 active companies in the British Virgin Islands, the firm’s busiest offshore hub, and 75 per cent of 10,500 active shell companies in Panama.Meanwhile, Mathieu, a previously little-known lawyer incorporating anonymous companies in her Dubai office, was dealing with the fallout of having her face on the ...
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