Jürgen Mossack

Early life

Mossack was born in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, on 20 March 1948. His father, Erhard Mossack, was a Rottenführer (senior corporal) in the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel, during World War II. According to U.S. intelligence files, he offered to spy for the Americans after the war.

When Jurgen Mossack was 13 he moved with his father and the rest of his family to Panama. Once in Panama Erhard Mossack offered his services to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for spying on Communist activity in Cuba. Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, said in 2016, when contacted by journalists, that they had documents related to Erhard Mossack but would not share any information, owing to possible security risks.

Mossack received a bachelor's degree in law from Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua in 1973.

Career

In 1975, Mossack worked as a lawyer in London before returning to Panama to start a firm in 1977. Mossack’s practice only became Mossack Fonseca in 1986, when it merged with the firm run by Ramón Fonseca Mora, a Panamanian novelist, lawyer, and politician. They built a global group of 600 employees and 46 subsidiaries, including the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Jersey, Luxembourg, the US, specifically the states of Wyoming, Florida, and Nevada.

Mossack served on Conarex, Panama’s council on foreign relations, from 2009 to 2014. On 7 April 2016, he announced that given the leak he was resigning from CONAREX, the national foreign relations council.

His brother Peter Mossack has served as Honorary Consul of Panama in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 2010 to date.

Mossack is a member of International Bar Association, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the Panama Bar Association; the International Maritime Association; and the Maritime National Association. Mossack’s holdings, according to the files obtained by ICIJ, include a teak plantation and other real estate, an executive helicopter, a yacht named Rex Maris and a collection of gold coins.

Investigations

On 3 April 2016, leaked documents from the company's private archive, dubbed the "Panama Papers", revealed detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors. Mossack told the Wall Street Journal that the intermediary banks that his firm worked with — and who represent the final recipients of the shell companies — should have done better reviews of their clients: “Our brand needs to be protected. We feel the best way to protect the brand is by doing things ourselves and not rely on others.”

News stories in May questioned whether the Panamanian consul in Frankfurt should be using the [email protected] email address that he is.

Mossack Fonseca was linked to a corruption investigation in Brazil into bribes paid to politicians by companies doing business with the state-run oil company, Petrobras. Investigators began focusing on the law firm after finding an array of apartments in the names of relatives of an imprisoned politician, the New York Times reported. Mossack took a leave of absence from his position as a presidential advisor on March 11, 2016 after Spanish prosecutors requested information about corporations linked to Ignacio González as part of a money-laundering investigation in that country. He had held the office since President Juan Carlos Varela took office in 2014. He remained the acting president of the Panameñista Party.

Personal life

Mossack has two daughters, Andrea and Nicole, who have been covered in the Panamanian press since at least 2003 for showjumping. His daughter Jennifer worked in his firm and was point of connection for a lobbyist of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

Mossack is a member of the prestigious Club Unión, where his daughter Nicole made her debut in 2008. She is married to Tomás Altamirano.