Denmark To Spend Up To $1.8M For Spilled Panama Papers Information On Tax Evaders

The Scandinavian nation’s taxation minister said Wednesday, Denmark will purchase leaked information from a Panamanian law office that helped clients open offshore companies to abstain from paying taxes.

Karsten Lauritzen said Danish tax authorities had gotten a mysterious offer over the mid year to gain information from the alleged Panama Papers that could include up to 600 people who may have dodged tax in Denmark. The ministry said communication with the mysterious source was made by means of encrypted channels.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Lauritzen said he would pay up to nine million Danish krone, or about $1.8 million, for the information.

“Everything suggests that it is useful information,” Lauritzen said. “We owe it to all Danish taxpayers who faithfully pay their taxes. “We must take the necessary measures in order to catch tax evaders who hide fortunes in, for instance, Panama. Therefore, we agreed that it is wise to buy the material.”

Lauritzen said, without elaborating, that “there may be fundamental problems associated with buying leaked information,” and taxation authorities “should be cautious.” He included that different parties in Denmark’s 179-seat Parliament upheld buying the documents, which are a piece of a stash reports leaked from law office Mossack Fonseca.

The information, which comprises of records on 11.5 million offshore holdings, was initially leaked to German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which shared it to a worldwide system of investigative journalists, prompting a series of media reports in April. In May, the journalists made the names of 200,000 offshore entities accessible in a searchable database. It’s vague whether Denmark is the first nation to have purchased or gotten to the leaked information past what was made public.

“The material contains relevant and valid information about several hundred Danish taxpayers,” Lauritzen said.

The repercussions of the leak have been far- ranging. Uproar led to the resignation of the prime minister of Iceland and brought investigation to, among others, the leaders of Argentina and Ukraine, Chinese politicians, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his companions. It was not clear how many lawmakers backed the plan as there had been no public vote in the assembly.