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Taylor Swift just thanked her “boyfriend, Adam” in an acceptance speech at the iHeartRadio Music Awards.
Everyone knows that Taylor’s dating Calvin Harris.
Outrage and gasps ensued, Twitter exploded.
Exhibit 1:
SCANDAL @taylorswift13 is dating @CalvinHarris AND some dude named Adam?! MIND. BLOWN. #iHeartAwards
— John Chimpo (@bchimpo) April 4, 2016
Exhibit 2:
All these social media apps trippin about Taylor Swift. Calvin Harris’ real name is Adam. So the jokes on ya’ll.
— babeh girl Lex (@lovedove_lex) April 4, 2016
Are we done? Great.
Now. The Panama Papers (#panamapapers) are a collection of 11.5 million leaked documents that tie 12 world leaders and hundreds of celebrities and athletes to a shell company scheme.
The long and short of it, is that those implicated by the documents have a lot of money they need to hide. And they’re hiding that money by funneling it through trusted networks of offshore banks.
Why “The Panama Papers”?
The information only pertains to one of many pawns in a rather large game of hide-the-money-from-taxes chess. That pawn is Mossack Fonseca, a Panamian law firm.
Who Was Implicated?
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, Iceland’s Prime Minister, Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s President, Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s President, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, have all been implicated in the leak. The list in no way shape or form ends there, but those are just some highlights.
How Much Money Are We Talking About?
US $2 Billion. At least.
How Did This Leak Happen?
Suddeutsche Zeitung, a highly-circulated German newspaper, received an email that stated:
Hello. This is John Doe. Interested in Data?
After being assured that he wanted no compensation, only to “see these crimes go public” and have all of his communications heavily encrypted, John Doe passed over the 11.5 million documents. The newspaper quickly realized that 11.5 million documents was just too big a chunk of data to sift through alone. They went to Washington D.C.’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to work through the data together.
How Are These World Leaders Hiding Money?
USA Today has put together a very basic video explaining exactly how Putin, Sharif, and friends have been hiding money from the taxing bodies that they help to govern. Have a look:
