All language subtitles for What-are-the-Panama-Papers

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- [Voiceover] From
UFO's to psychic powers,

and government conspiracies,

history is riddled with
unexplained events.

(doorbell)
You can turn back now,

or learn the stuff they
don't want you to know.

Here are the facts.

Sometime more than a year
before April of 2016,

an anonymous source,

identifying him or herself as John Doe,

contacted a German paper named

the Süddeutsche Zeitung

with an extraordinary offer.

This source claimed to
have access to around

2.6 terabytes of secret
data from a Panama based

law firm named Mossack Fonseca,

which sold offshore
companies around the globe.

The source did not want money

for this revelatory information.

Nor did the source want fame.

Instead, they would only say

they believed the firm was doing

real harm to the world,

and wanted this harm to cease.

The German paper accepted the leak.

They partnered with the
International Consortium

of Investigative Journalists,

and spent around a year
analyzing the documents

before going public with the largest leak

in human history.

So what, exactly, did they find?

Here's where it gets crazy.

At the time of this recording,

the world is still analyzing this data,

and what researchers have found so far

is profoundly disturbing.

In the documents, which range
from the 1970's to 2015,

Mossack Fonseca is shown to function,

as the German paper notes,

"as a hub of a global
industry led by major banks,

"legal firms, and asset
management companies

"secretly stewarding the estates

"of the world's rich and famous

"from politicians, FIFA
officials, fraudsters,

"and drug smugglers,

"to celebrities and
professional athletes."

In short, to hide,
transfer, and in some cases,

to clean dirty money.

By April 3rd of 2015,

the news had reached
populations in countries

around the planet.

Heads of State and
industry were implicated,

as well as kings.

Many of these individuals
worked through their relatives,

squirreling away cash and, in some cases,

circumventing sanctions.

Sources traced money to Vladmir Putin,

the Prime Minister of Iceland,

heads of Chinese government,

Middle Eastern royalty,

Indian celebrities,

and even Jackie Chan.

These powerful people
worked with Mossack Fonseca

to create shell companies
in other countries,

informally known as tax havens,

an act which, in itself,
is not inherently illegal.

However, journalists note the majority

of these operations were designed to hide

the identity of the actual owners,

in other words, the
people hiding the money.

Some of these clients are
out-and-out criminals,

like bank robbers and mafioso.

Other shell companies
appear to hold bribery money

from corrupt officials.

In some cases, this
means the leaks are proof

of illegal financial activity
by some of the worlds

wealthiest groups and individuals.

Others think there may be
more to the story, however,

asking why comparatively few
Americans have been named

in the leak so far.

Could this be a result of a conspiracy

by one group to expose the activities

of a geo-political rival?

Does the timing have anything
to do with the recent

Unaoil scandal?

At this point, it's hard to say.

Yet as journalists continue to dig,

and the average citizens of
countries around the world

begin asking tougher questions

about what their leaders
do behind the scenes,

one thing's becoming abundantly clear.

Mossack Fonseca and its
over 300,000 clients

have something they
don't want you to know.

And we've just begun
to scratch the surface.

To learn more about the emerging scandal

surrounding the Panama Papers,

tune in to our audio podcast

on stufftheydontwantyoutoknow.com.

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