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#PanamaPapers corruption scandal breaks the Internet

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story misstated the number of world leaders linked to offshore holdings. The documents identify 12 current or former leaders and 60 family members or associates. 

A year-long investigation revealing how many of the world's wealthiest individuals, including notable politicians and world leaders, hid billions of dollars in offshore shell companies broke the Internet Sunday.

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story misstated the number of world leaders linked to offshore holdings. The documents identify 12 current or former leaders and 60 family members or associates. 

A year-long investigation revealing how many of the world's wealthiest individuals, including notable politicians and world leaders, hid billions of dollars in offshore shell companies broke the Internet Sunday.

The news of the 11.5-million document cache —accusing 140 politicians of evading taxes or laundering money through a network of offshore companies — went viral as many expressed their shock and outrage about the money rings tied to Syrian president Bashar Assad, Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin , among others. 

Dozens of journalists, who spent a year sifting through the data leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca , drew connections between the network and 12 current or former world leaders, highlighting several conflicts of interest. Some of the accounts were traced back to relatives and close friends of the leaders, like the cellist who was childhood friends with Putin. Others were directly linked. 

 

No major American government leader was named.

#PanamaPapers quickly took off on social media. It's the top trending topic on Twitter with more than half a million people using the hashtag alone. Panama Papers also is trending on Facebook and is on the front page of reddit.

Nowhere was it more widespread than in the Twitterverse.

 

 

 

 

Some on social media expressed little to no surprise over the massive corruption allegations, especially in cases where dictators were accused of looting the countries they led while in power.

 

 

 

Among the most viral moments of the Panama Papers revelation was Gunnlaugsson's reaction when asked about Wintris Inc. , a shell company allegedly controlled by Gunnlaugsson and his wife, during an interview with the Guardian. He denied hiding any money, at one point saying "I don't know how these things work," before walking out of the interview.

 

 

In the hours since, Icelandic politicians have called for Gunnlaugsson's resignation, including the country's former prime minister Johanna Sigurdardottir. The opposition in parliament decided it will call for elections, according to the state news outlet Visir.

The allegations suggest Gunnlaugsson had authority over the company and stored away his money throughout his seven-year tenure as prime minister — even as Iceland slipped into a financial crisis, the Guardian reported. (Trapped in the throes of the global recession, Iceland was later bailed out and saw its currency value drop before eventually recovering in the past couple of years.) 

 

People don't need hashtags to tell them how historic this data leak is. But in a world where news value is increasingly measured in virality, the trend underscores just how major the revelations are — and how much it hits home to readers.

 

 

 

Follow Steph Solis on Twitter: @stephmsolis.

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