Criminal and civil proceedings involving the firm and its founders

analysisPanamanian authorities raided the firm 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 companies of the firm had been used to make and receive bribes in connection with the Lava Jato ('Car Wash') scandal, called it '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; these are her allegations as reported by the investigative journalism consortium. According to an online encyclopedia, 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. 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 they issued a press release saying that the firm, its employees and its founders were 'never involved in unlawful acts'. A notice of Panama's judiciary of 2 June 2017 records that Ramón Enrique Fonseca Mora and Jürgen Rolf Dieter Mossack were among the persons formally accused in the investigation of the Second Prosecutor's Office against Organised Crime. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisA Panamanian news outlet reported on 13 June 2019 that, in an opinion of 20 May 2019, the Second Specialised Prosecutor's Office against Organised Crime asked for 34 employees of the firm, including its founding partners and its most senior executives, to be tried for money laundering. The prosecutors concluded that 'the law firm Mossack Fonseca or Bufete MF&Co' had concealed the origin and ownership of money from illicit activities by creating structures that kept its clients' identities hidden; the investigation concerned the relationship between Mossack Fonseca & Co. in Brazil and in Panama in the Lava Jato affair. ^{6 7 8}

analysisA Panamanian newspaper reported on 16 June 2022 that Judge Baloísa Marquínez of the Third Liquidating Criminal Court had ordered the provisional dismissal of the Lava Jato case against Mossack, Fonseca Mora and 37 other people; according to the ruling as reported, the investigation had not shown which accounts were created in Panama to hide illicit money, the amounts involved or the traceability of funds allegedly coming from Brazil, nor that the firm managed any fund or account from Brazil; all precautionary measures and bail were lifted. The case, opened in 2016, ran to 293 volumes. The retained records do not explain how it then went to trial. According to an online encyclopedia, the two founders were put on trial for money laundering in Panama City on 26 June 2023, with the prosecution asking for up to 12 years in prison for concealing assets linked to Car Wash and for sentences for 26 other defendants; the same passage says that Fonseca died a month after an acquittal, which conflicts with the court reports that his criminal liability was extinguished because he had died in May 2024. ^{9 7 2 10}

analysisA Panamanian news website reported on 29 June 2024 that Judge Marquínez, in a 339-page judgment, had acquitted all 28 defendants in the 'Panama Papers'–'Lava Jato' money-laundering case, Jürgen Mossack among them, lifted all personal and property precautionary measures and declared criminal liability extinguished for Ramón Fonseca Mora because he had died. On 10 August 2026 the Higher Court for the Liquidation of Criminal Cases of the First Judicial District, on the prosecution's appeal, confirmed acquittal judgment No. 03 of 28 June 2024 in full. According to the judiciary's notice, the first-instance court had found that evidence taken from the firm's servers and added to the file on paper did not meet chain-of-custody requirements, and that the remaining evidence was insufficient to establish the defendants' criminal liability. A further Panamanian news website reported that the appeal judgment, No. 12 of 10 August 2026, upheld Mossack's acquittal in both files, No. 48931-19 (Lava Jato) and No. 87256-19 (Panama Papers); for Fonseca, whose criminal action had been declared extinguished by his death, the outcome is legally not an acquittal. ^{7 8 11}

analysisIn a separate Panamanian money-laundering proceeding, the Siemens case, over the alleged concealment through the firm of undisclosed funds of executives of the German company Siemens, which began with a raid on the firm in April 2016, another Panamanian news website reported on 27 January 2022 that Mossack, Fonseca and Christoph Zollinger were among those called to trial, while the cases of several of the firm's employees were dismissed or declared extinguished. The retained records report no judgment in this case. ¹

analysisThe investigative journalism consortium reported in June 2018 that Mossack remained under investigation by prosecutors in Cologne as an accessory to tax evasion; another German newspaper wrote that the Cologne investigation of both founders 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; its page, dated 15 November 2018, does not say when the investigation was opened. According to an online encyclopedia, Cologne prosecutors issued international arrest warrants for Mossack and Fonseca on 20 October 2020 on charges including accessory to tax evasion and forming a criminal organisation; the charges against Fonseca were dropped when he died, and a local-history wiki notes that Panama does not in principle extradite its own citizens. No German court decision concerning Mossack is in the retained records. In April 2026 the investigative journalism consortium reported, citing a German public broadcaster and the court's spokesperson, that the Regional Court of Cologne had convicted Christoph Zollinger, a former co-owner of the firm, of aiding and abetting tax evasion and sentenced him to one year and nine months on probation; the court found that offshore companies had been set up 'on a massive scale' and 'in a factory-like manner', the indictment listed 50 companies and an estimated tax loss of about 13 million euros, and a charge of forming criminal organisations was dropped. Zollinger admitted the charges through a statement read by his lawyer and waived his right to appeal. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

analysisAn online encyclopedia cites court papers filed on 15 October 2019 as stating that Mossack and Fonseca 'are the subjects of an FBI Investigation in the Southern District of New York'; no U.S. charge against the two men is in the retained records. On 4 December 2018 the U.S. Department of Justice announced an 11-count indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York charging four individuals with wire fraud, tax fraud, money laundering and other offences for their alleged roles in a decades-long scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co. and related entities. Two were a Panamanian attorney who had worked for the firm and an investment manager of Mossfon Asset Management; according to the indictment they helped U.S. clients of the firm hide assets and income from the IRS from about 2000 to 2017 through sham foundations and shell companies. The Department stated that the charges are allegations and the defendants presumed innocent; the firm itself was not charged, and the outcome of the case is not in the retained records. ^{1 7}

analysisOn 15 October 2019 Mossack Fonseca & Co., S.A., Bufete MF & Co. and the two founders sued Netflix, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut over the film The Laundromat, alleging libel, false-light invasion of privacy and misuse of the firm's trademarked logo; on 17 October 2019 the court held that it lacked personal jurisdiction and transferred the case to the Central District of California. What happened after the transfer is not in the retained records. ^{1 2}