April 15, 2016
The Trinidad and Tobago government Friday said that it is seeking the assistance of “investigative and prosecutorial agencies in and outside” of the country to probe “local issues” arising out of the Panama Papers.
The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The Trinidad Express newspaper, which said the head of its Investigative Desk, Camani Maharaj, is part of the ICIJ, on April 4 published an exclusive story in which it claimed that Ken Emirth, a member of the main opposition United National Congress (UNC) is linked to a bribery scandal in Brazil. The paper reported that Emrith, a business consultant described as a former low-level party functionary of the UNC, allegedly used a Panamanian shell corporation to channel millions of US dollars to offshore bank accounts, including a one million US dollar consultancy fee from a convicted money launderer connected to the Petrobras bribery scandal in Brazil.