The GoDaddies of tax-havens :
When we asked Nancy and Stephen about whether they are responsible for monitoring shady clients, they told us they wouldn’t necessarily know if their clients were acting outside the law. “We don’t get involved at all. We just serve as the registered agent,” said Stephen. Stephen did say, however, that if for some reason their client was acting suspiciously, he would cut ties immediately.
• • •
Blast from the past :
Today, he says, “Panama is essentially an extension of the U.S. economy.” It harkens back to the early 20th century, when canal workers were paid in American dollars. In the roaring, free-market friendly 1920s, Panama adopted U.S.-style corporate laws. Some U.S. ships, seeking to avoid Prohibition restrictions against serving alcohol onboard, registered in Panama instead. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration was alarmed to find out that, as the U.S. worked to dig itself out of the Great Depression, wealthy Americans were using Panama as a tax haven.
Jurgen Mossack’s family landed here in the 1960s. During World War II, his father had served in the Nazi Party’s Waffen-SS, according to U.S. Army intelligence files obtained by the ICIJ. Once in Panama, the elder Mossack offered to spy on communists in Cuba for the CIA.
Abnormal Capitalist 