What is the evidence of potential criminal activity to be found in the Panama Papers?

A court in April agreed that evidence of criminal activity could exist in the Panama Papers. The decision, which came about thanks to an application by former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil and NGO Repubblika, was only a starting point for the evidence-gathering process against the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi to begin. Jacob Borg looks at the evidence of suspicious activity that can be found in the Panama Papers leak.

A fishy business in Bangladesh?

One of the key pieces of evidence found in the Panama Papers is the famous 17 Black e-mail.

An aspect often overlooked in the e-mail is the “business activity” of the Panama companies.

The Prime Minister’s top aide and Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi were supposedly eyeing maritime and fisheries business in Bangladesh, infrastructure projects in Africa and India, tourism in Asia, remote gaming and recycling.

Why is this suspicious?

Even if the e-mail is taken at face value, it is already questionable why two government officials would be secretly entering into such business activities half way across the world.

A far more likely explanation is that the stated business activities...