--- title: "Ramón Fonseca Mora" language: en canonical: https://dossiertwist.com/dossiers/mossack-fonseca-inc/people/ramon-fonseca/ as_of: 2026-10-22 keywords: ["Mossack Fonseca Inc","Mossack, Fonseca & Co.","Bufete MF & Co.","Jürgen Mossack","Ramón Fonseca Mora","Panama Papers","nominee directors","Leticia Montoya","tasa única","Panama Public Registry","M.F. Corporate Services (Nevada)","Tornbell Associates","NML Capital","ELFEC","SOELBO","COMTECO","Lava Jato","Christoph Zollinger","Orbis Legal Services","Mossfon Asset Management"] --- # Ramón Fonseca Mora - Also known as: Ramon Fonseca · Ramón Fonseca · Ramón Enrique de Jesús Fonseca Mora **Question.** What were Ramón Fonseca Mora's roles in the firm and its companies, and what became of the proceedings against him? **Answer.** Ramón Fonseca Mora, a Panamanian lawyer and novelist, joined Jürgen Mossack's practice as partner in 1986 and by his own 2019 statement co-owned the firm in equal parts; he was minister-counselor to President Juan Carlos Varela and president of the Panameñista Party until March 2016. Registry data show him as a member of the law partnership and of Mossack Fonseca, Abogados and as an officer of other group companies. Jailed in 2017 and tried for money laundering, he died on 8 May 2024; the court declared his criminal liability extinguished, which is legally not an acquittal, and German charges were dropped on his death. ## Roles in the firm and the group - Analysis: An online encyclopedia describes Ramón Fonseca Mora, who died on 8 May 2024, as a Panamanian novelist, lawyer and co-founder of Mossack Fonseca, who was minister-counselor to President Juan Carlos Varela and president of the Panameñista Party until he was dismissed in March 2016 because of the Brazilian Lava Jato investigation; a Panamanian newspaper described him in May 2016 as a former minister-counselor of the president and former president of the party. Secondary accounts say he joined Mossack's practice as partner in 1986, through a merger with his own firm according to an online encyclopedia, and another Panamanian newspaper dates the constitution of the partnership to 24 January 1986; no founding deed is retained. [src-052] [src-013] [src-018] [src-009] [src-022] [src-008] [src-025] - Analysis: In 2019 he and Mossack stated in a pleading that they owned Bufete MF & Co. as equal partners and Mossack Fonseca & Co, S.A. as equal shareholders; the court summarised this as background without ruling on it. A commercial registry-data service shows him among the related members of Bufete MF & Co., without saying which members are active, and as the first of three active members of Mossack Fonseca, Abogados, a partnership whose purpose the aggregator data do not state. A separate commercial registry-data service's name-matched page shows 395 links to Panamanian companies, with his recorded positions in the five companies visible on the free page being director, president and treasurer; among the companies it lists are Fiduciaria Mossfon, S.A. (Mossfon Trust Corporation) and Mossack Fonseca & Co. Trading Inc., without his position in them. It warns that its matching may combine several people. In May 2016 a Panamanian newspaper linked five companies then on the DGI list of ten-year fee arrears to him, Mossack Fonseca Inc among them; that was the newspaper's reading of the registry at the time, and the companies' status changed later. After the leak he said the firm's network had been compromised by hackers in 2015. [src-073] [src-034] [src-056] [src-011] [src-020] [src-064] [src-013] [src-008] [src-016] - Attributed: From April 2016 about 11.5 million internal legal and financial documents of Mossack Fonseca, published mainly through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) as the Panama Papers, became the basis of worldwide reporting on offshore companies. [src-008] [src-016] - Qualification: The leaked documents are not part of the retained evidence. - Response: The firm called itself the victim of a worldwide cyberattack and said that ICIJ, working from stolen information, had presented a mistaken picture of its services; Ramón Fonseca said its network had been compromised by hackers in 2015. ## Proceedings - Analysis: Arrested with Mossack on money-laundering charges after the Attorney General's allegations, he was jailed on 10 February 2017 and released on 21 April 2017 on $500,000 bail after a judge ruled that the two had cooperated with the investigation; both denied wrongdoing. According to an online encyclopedia he was put on trial with Mossack in Panama City on 26 June 2023; the same encyclopedia passage says he died a month after an acquittal, which conflicts with the court reports. A Panamanian news website reported that when the court acquitted the 28 remaining defendants on 28 June 2024 it declared his criminal liability extinguished because he had died, and the judiciary's 2026 notice confirms that judgment, No. 03; a further Panamanian news website's report of the appeal notes that for him the outcome is legally not an acquittal. According to an online encyclopedia, Cologne prosecutors had issued an international arrest warrant for him in October 2020, and the charges were dropped when he died. [src-008] [src-009] [src-013] [src-060] [src-052] [src-038] [src-042] [src-018] [src-076] - Attributed: Panamanian authorities raided Mossack Fonseca in 2016 and 2017; a Panamanian newspaper reported that the first raid on its headquarters came ten days after the Panama Papers were published, and a financial-crime law blog reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced an investigation. In February 2017 Panama's Attorney General, Kenia Porcell, alleged that Mossack Fonseca companies had been used to make and receive bribes in connection with the Lava Jato ('Car Wash') scandal, called the firm 'a criminal organization that is dedicated to hiding money assets from suspicious origins' and ordered the arrest of Mossack and Fonseca on money-laundering charges. Both were jailed on 10 February 2017 and released on 21 April 2017 on bail of $500,000 each, after a judge ruled that they had cooperated with the investigation. [src-008] [src-009] [src-013] [src-060] - Qualification: The Attorney General's statements are allegations; they are reported by the investigative journalism consortium, and the arrest dates by an online encyclopedia. - Response: According to the investigative journalism consortium, the two men denied wrongdoing. In a notebook in his jail cell Mossack wrote that the prosecutors were 'trying to obtain evidence for a crime that does not exist', and in June 2018 the two lawyers issued a press release saying that the firm, its employees and its founders were 'never involved in unlawful acts'. - Attributed: A further Panamanian news website reported on 13 August 2026 that the appeal judgment (second-instance judgment No. 12 of 10 August 2026) upheld the acquittal of Jürgen Rolf Dieter Mossack Herzog in both files, No. 48931-19 (Lava Jato) and No. 87256-19 (Panama Papers), after rejecting the arguments of the Second Specialised Prosecutor's Office against Organised Crime; for Ramón Enrique de Jesús Fonseca Mora, whose criminal action had been declared extinguished by his death, the outcome is legally not an acquittal. [src-042] - Qualification: Newspaper report of the appeal judgment, which the judiciary's own notice summarises without names. - Attributed: According to an online encyclopedia, prosecutors in Cologne, Germany, issued international arrest warrants for Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca on 20 October 2020 on charges including accessory to tax evasion and forming a criminal organisation, with the firm central to the investigation; the charges against Fonseca were dropped when he died in May 2024. A local-history wiki adds that, because Panama does not in principle extradite its own citizens, Mossack remains free as long as he stays in Panama. The investigative journalism consortium reported in June 2018 that Mossack remained under investigation by the Cologne prosecutors as an accessory to tax evasion, according to a statement provided to a German newspaper; another German newspaper wrote that the Cologne investigation of Mossack and Fonseca for suspected aiding of tax evasion had been opened after the tax authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia bought a CD of the firm's data for nearly one million euros, and that it had nothing to do with the Panama Papers. [src-009] [src-052] [src-018] [src-060] [src-076] - Qualification: Encyclopedia and press accounts; the retained records contain no German court decision concerning Mossack, and another German newspaper page, dated 15 November 2018, does not say when the investigation was opened. ## Sources - [src-052] Other source · src-052 - [src-013] Media source · src-013 - [src-018] Other source · src-018 - [src-009] Other source · src-009 - [src-022] Media source · src-022 - [src-008] Media source · src-008 - [src-025] Media source · src-025 - [src-073] Court record source · src-073 - [src-034] Court record source · src-034 - [src-056] Corporate registry source · src-056 - [src-011] Corporate registry source · src-011 - [src-020] Corporate registry source · src-020 - [src-064] Corporate registry source · src-064 - [src-016] Company statement source · src-016 - [src-060] Media source · src-060 - [src-038] Media source · src-038 - [src-042] Media source · src-042 - [src-076] Media source · src-076