The Panama Papers database revealing illicit activities by individuals world-wide trying to hide their money, has revealed three dozen Americans.
Among them are
- Martin Frankel, a Connecticut financier who pleaded guilty in 2002 to 24 federal charges involving an insurance company scam resulting in $200 million in losses. He also set up a false charity called the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation with the help of a Vatican official.
- Andrew Wiederhorn, an Oregon corporate executive who pleaded guilty in 2004 to two felonies in a case tied to one of the largest corporate in Oregon history
- Robert Miracle, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his part in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 4,200 middle-class Indonesians out of their money. During his sentencing hearing in 2011, a federal judge ordered Miracle to give up his $38,000 diamond ring and a $27,000 painting he had just bought in Italy.
- Leonard Gotshalk, once an Atlanta Falcons offensive tackle turned Oregon businessman, has faced myriad criminal investigations over the years.
- In 1994, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Gotshalk for providing investors with “false and misleading information” about a company involved in oil and gas investments. Then in 2004, an Oregon court convicted him of theft, sentenced him to 20 months in prison, and ordered him to pay a fine. In 2010, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia unsealed an indictment against him, claiming he was part of a scheme to inflate the price of tech company stocks.
- In spite of all these charges, Gotshalk was still able to open an offshore account through Mossack Fonseca.
- Rebel Holiday, who lived in Virginia and presented herself at Mossack Fonseca in 2009 as a successful entrepreneur with a plan to sell “collectibles” containing small amounts of gold, reported The Washington Post. The company Holiday wanted to register in Panama would be “committed to the democratization of gold and precious metals that have only been available to the affluent in recent years.”
- Andrew Mogilyansky was named in the Panama Papers as a client of Mossack Fonseca and was accused and convicted of running a prostitution ring in Philadelphia in 2008. He pleaded guilty to all charges against him, though friends of his have staunchly maintained that Russian President Vladimir Putin set him up. More names are expected to surface and federal authorities are investigating.
Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers.
