Panama rejects reputation as money laundering hub after document release

PANAMA CITY (AP)/earthlink.net — Panamanians have long shrugged off their country’s checkered reputation as a financial haven for drug lords, tax dodgers and corrupt oligarchs. If they’re crooks, they’ve learned from the world’s wealthy nations, they like to joke.

That same defensiveness has re-emerged amid the fallout from the leak of 11.5 million confidential documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca revealing details of how some of the globe’s richest people funnel their assets into secretive shell companies set up here and in other lightly regulated jurisdictions. Read Article